Semi-synthetic terephthalic acid via microorganisms that produce muconic acid

ABSTRACT

The invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway having at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate. The muconate pathway including an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a beta-ketothiolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, a 2-fumarylacetate reductase, a 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, a trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, a beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, a muconolactone isomerase, a muconate cycloisomerase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, a 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, a muconate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, a cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-maleylacetate aminoatransferase, a 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate deaminase, and a muconate cis/trans isomerase. Other muconate pathway enzymes also are provided. Additionally provided are methods of producing muconate.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/308,292, filed Jun. 18, 2014, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/851,478, filed Aug. 5, 2010, which claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/231,637, filed Aug. 5, 2009, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by this reference. Also, the entire contents of the ASCII text file entitled “Sequence_Listing.txt”, having a size of 35 kilobytes, is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure relates generally to the design of engineered organisms and, more specifically to organisms having selected genotypes for the production of muconic acid.

Terephthalate (also known as terephthalic acid and PTA) is the immediate precursor of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), used to make clothing, resins, plastic bottles and even as a poultry feed additive. Nearly all PTA is produced from para-xylene by the oxidation in air in a process known as the Mid Century Process (Roffia et al., Ind. Eng. Chem. Prod. Res. Dev. 23:629-634 (1984)). This oxidation is conducted at high temperature in an acetic acid solvent with a catalyst composed of cobalt and/or manganese salts. Para-xylene is derived from petrochemical sources, and is formed by high severity catalytic reforming of naphtha. Xylene is also obtained from the pyrolysis gasoline stream in a naphtha steam cracker and by toluene disproportion.

PTA, toluene and other aromatic precursors are naturally degraded by some bacteria. However, these degradation pathways typically involve monooxygenases that operate irreversibly in the degradative direction. Hence, biosynthetic pathways for PTA are severely limited by the properties of known enzymes to date.

Muconate (also known as muconic acid, MA) is an unsaturated dicarboxylic acid used as a raw material for resins, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Muconate can be converted to adipic acid, a precursor of Nylon-6,6, via hydrogenation (Draths and Frost, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 116; 399-400 (1994)). Alternately, muconate can be hydrogenated using biometallic nanocatalysts (Thomas et al., Chem. Commun. 10:1126-1127 (2003)).

Muconate is a common degradation product of diverse aromatic compounds in microbes. Several biocatalytic strategies for making cis,cis-muconate have been developed. Engineered E. coli strains producing muconate from glucose via shikimate pathway enzymes have been developed in the Frost lab (U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,987 (1996); Niu et al., Biotechnol Prog., 18:201-211 (2002)). These strains are able to produce 36.8 g/L of cis, cis-muconate after 48 hours of culturing under fed-batch fermenter conditions (22% of the maximum theoretical yield from glucose). Muconate has also been produced biocatalytically from aromatic starting materials such as toluene, benzoic acid and catechol. Strains producing muconate from benzoate achieved titers of 13.5 g/L and productivity of 5.5 g/L/hr (Choi et al., J. Ferment. Bioeng. 84:70-76 (1997)). Muconate has also been generated from the effluents of a styrene monomer production plant (Wu et al., Enzyme and Microbiology Technology 35:598-604 (2004)).

All biocatalytic pathways identified to date proceed through enzymes in the shikimate pathway, or degradation enzymes from catechol. Consequently, they are limited to producing the cis, cis isomer of muconate, since these pathways involve ring-opening chemistry. The development of pathways for producing trans,trans-muconate and cis,trans-muconate would be useful because these isomers can serve as direct synthetic intermediates for producing renewable PTA via the inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reaction with acetylene. The present invention satisfies this need and provides related advantages as well.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

The invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway having at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate. The muconate pathway including an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a beta-ketothiolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, a 2-fumarylacetate reductase, a 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, a trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, a beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, a muconolactone isomerase, a muconate cycloisomerase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, a 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, a muconate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, a cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-maleylacetate aminoatransferase, a 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate deaminase, and a muconate cis/trans isomerase. Other muconate pathway enzymes also are provided. Additionally provided are methods of producing muconate.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows the synthesis of terepthalate from muconate and acetylene via Diels-Alder chemistry. P1 is cyclohexa-2,5-diene-1,4-dicarboxylate.

FIG. 2 shows pathways to trans-trans muconate from succinyl CoA. Enzymes are A) beta-ketothiolase, B) beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, transferase and/or ligase, C) 2-fumarylacetate reductase, D) 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, E) trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, F) 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase and/or 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, G) trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, H) beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, I) muconolactone isomerase, J) muconate cycloisomerase, K) beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, L) 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, M) 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, hydrolase or ligase, N) muconate reductase, O) 2-maleylacetate reductase, P) 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, Q) cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, R) 2-maleylacetate aminotransferase and/or 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, S) cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate deaminase, T) muconate cis/trans isomerase, W) muconate cis/trans isomerase.

FIG. 3 shows pathways to muconate from pyruvate and malonate semialdehyde. Enzymes are A) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, B) 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, C) 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, D) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase, E) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, F) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), G) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group) and H) 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.

FIG. 4 shows pathways to muconate from pyruvate and succinic semialdehyde. Enzymes are A) HODH aldolase, B) OHED hydratase, C) OHED decarboxylase, D) HODH formate-lyase and/or HODH dehydrogenase, E) OHED formate-lyase and/or OHED dehydrogenase, F) 6-OHE dehydrogenase, G) 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, H) 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, transferase or ligase, I) muconate reductase. Abbreviations are: HODH=4-hydroxy-2-oxoheptane-1,7-dioate, OHED=2-oxohept-4-ene-1,7-dioate, 6-OHE=6-oxo-2,3-dehydrohexanoate.

FIG. 5 shows pathways to muconate from lysine. Enzymes are A) lysine aminotransferase and/or aminating oxidoreductase, B) 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, C) 2-aminoadipate deaminase, D) muconate reductase, E) lysine-2,3-aminomutase, F) 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminotransferase and/or aminating oxidoreductase, G) 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, H) 3-aminoadipate deaminase.

FIG. 6 shows 3 thiolases with demonstrated thiolase activity resulting in acetoacetyl-CoA formation (left panel). FIG. 6 also shows that several enzymes demonstrated selective condensation of succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA to form β-ketoadipyl-CoA as the sole product (right panel).

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed, in part, to a biosynthetic pathway for synthesizing muconate from simple carbohydrate feedstocks, which in turn provides a viable synthetic route to PTA. In particular, pathways disclosed herein provide trans,trans-muconate or cis,trans-muconate biocatalytically from simple sugars. The all trans or cis,trans isomer of muconate is then converted to PTA in a two step process via inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reaction with acetylene followed by oxidation in air or oxygen. The Diels-Alder reaction between muconate and acetylene proceeds to form cyclohexa-2,5-diene-1,4-dicarboxylate (P1), as shown in FIG. 1. Subsequent exposure to air or oxygen rapidly converts P1 to PTA.

This invention is also directed, in part, to non-naturally occurring microorganisms that express genes encoding enzymes that catalyze muconate production. Pathways for the production of muconate disclosed herein are derived from central metabolic precursors. Successfully engineering these pathways entails identifying an appropriate set of enzymes with sufficient activity and specificity, cloning their corresponding genes into a production host, optimizing the expression of these genes in the production host, optimizing fermentation conditions, and assaying for product formation following fermentation.

The maximum theoretical yield of muconic acid is 1.09 moles per mole glucose utilized. Achieving this yield involves assimilation of CO₂ as shown in equation 1 below: 11C₆H₁₂O₆+6CO₂→12C₆H₆O₄+30H₂O  (equation 1)

As used herein, the term “muconate” is used interchangeably with muconic acid. Muconate is also used to refer to any of the possible isomeric forms: trans,trans, cis,trans, and cis,cis. However, the present invention provides pathways to the useful trans,trans and cis,trans forms, in particular.

As used herein, the term “non-naturally occurring” when used in reference to a microbial organism or microorganism of the invention is intended to mean that the microbial organism has at least one genetic alteration not normally found in a naturally occurring strain of the referenced species, including wild-type strains of the referenced species. Genetic alterations include, for example, modifications introducing expressible nucleic acids encoding metabolic polypeptides, other nucleic acid additions, nucleic acid deletions and/or other functional disruption of the microbial genetic material. Such modifications include, for example, coding regions and functional fragments thereof, for heterologous, homologous or both heterologous and homologous polypeptides for the referenced species. Additional modifications include, for example, non-coding regulatory regions in which the modifications alter expression of a gene or operon. Exemplary metabolic polypeptides include enzymes or proteins within a muconate biosynthetic pathway.

A metabolic modification refers to a biochemical reaction that is altered from its naturally occurring state. Therefore, non-naturally occurring microorganisms can have genetic modifications to nucleic acids encoding metabolic polypeptides or, functional fragments thereof. Exemplary metabolic modifications are disclosed herein.

As used herein, the term “isolated” when used in reference to a microbial organism is intended to mean an organism that is substantially free of at least one component as the referenced microbial organism is found in nature. The term includes a microbial organism that is removed from some or all components as it is found in its natural environment. The term also includes a microbial organism that is removed from some or all components as the microbial organism is found in non-naturally occurring environments. Therefore, an isolated microbial organism is partly or completely separated from other substances as it is found in nature or as it is grown, stored or subsisted in non-naturally occurring environments. Specific examples of isolated microbial organisms include partially pure microbes, substantially pure microbes and microbes cultured in a medium that is non-naturally occurring.

As used herein, the terms “microbial,” “microbial organism” or “microorganism” is intended to mean any organism that exists as a microscopic cell that is included within the domains of archaea, bacteria or eukarya. Therefore, the term is intended to encompass prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells or organisms having a microscopic size and includes bacteria, archaea and eubacteria of all species as well as eukaryotic microorganisms such as yeast and fungi. The term also includes cell cultures of any species that can be cultured for the production of a biochemical.

As used herein, the term “CoA” or “coenzyme A” is intended to mean an organic cofactor or prosthetic group (nonprotein portion of an enzyme) whose presence is required for the activity of many enzymes (the apoenzyme) to form an active enzyme system. Coenzyme A functions in certain condensing enzymes, acts in acetyl or other acyl group transfer and in fatty acid synthesis and oxidation, pyruvate oxidation and in other acetylation.

As used herein, the term “substantially anaerobic” when used in reference to a culture or growth condition is intended to mean that the amount of oxygen is less than about 10% of saturation for dissolved oxygen in liquid media. The term also is intended to include sealed chambers of liquid or solid medium maintained with an atmosphere of less than about 1% oxygen.

“Exogenous” as it is used herein is intended to mean that the referenced molecule or the referenced activity is introduced into the host microbial organism. The molecule can be introduced, for example, by introduction of an encoding nucleic acid into the host genetic material such as by integration into a host chromosome or as non-chromosomal genetic material such as a plasmid. Therefore, the term as it is used in reference to expression of an encoding nucleic acid refers to introduction of the encoding nucleic acid in an expressible form into the microbial organism. When used in reference to a biosynthetic activity, the term refers to an activity that is introduced into the host reference organism. The source can be, for example, a homologous or heterologous encoding nucleic acid that expresses the referenced activity following introduction into the host microbial organism. Therefore, the term “endogenous” refers to a referenced molecule or activity that is present in the host. Similarly, the term when used in reference to expression of an encoding nucleic acid refers to expression of an encoding nucleic acid contained within the microbial organism. The term “heterologous” refers to a molecule or activity derived from a source other than the referenced species whereas “homologous” refers to a molecule or activity derived from the host microbial organism. Accordingly, exogenous expression of an encoding nucleic acid of the invention can utilize either or both a heterologous or homologous encoding nucleic acid.

The non-naturally occurring microbal organisms of the invention can contain stable genetic alterations, which refers to microorganisms that can be cultured for greater than five generations without loss of the alteration. Generally, stable genetic alterations include modifications that persist greater than 10 generations, particularly stable modifications will persist more than about 25 generations, and more particularly, stable genetic modifications will be greater than 50 generations, including indefinitely.

Those skilled in the art will understand that the genetic alterations, including metabolic modifications exemplified herein, are described with reference to a suitable host organism such as E. coli and their corresponding metabolic reactions or a suitable source organism for desired genetic material such as genes for a desired metabolic pathway. However, given the complete genome sequencing of a wide variety of organisms and the high level of skill in the area of genomics, those skilled in the art will readily be able to apply the teachings and guidance provided herein to essentially all other organisms. For example, the E. coli metabolic alterations exemplified herein can readily be applied to other species by incorporating the same or analogous encoding nucleic acid from species other than the referenced species. Such genetic alterations include, for example, genetic alterations of species homologs, in general, and in particular, orthologs, paralogs or nonorthologous gene displacements.

An ortholog is a gene or genes that are related by vertical descent and are responsible for substantially the same or identical functions in different organisms. For example, mouse epoxide hydrolase and human epoxide hydrolase can be considered orthologs for the biological function of hydrolysis of epoxides. Genes are related by vertical descent when, for example, they share sequence similarity of sufficient amount to indicate they are homologous, or related by evolution from a common ancestor. Genes can also be considered orthologs if they share three-dimensional structure but not necessarily sequence similarity, of a sufficient amount to indicate that they have evolved from a common ancestor to the extent that the primary sequence similarity is not identifiable. Genes that are orthologous can encode proteins with sequence similarity of about 25% to 100% amino acid sequence identity. Genes encoding proteins sharing an amino acid similarity less that 25% can also be considered to have arisen by vertical descent if their three-dimensional structure also shows similarities. Members of the serine protease family of enzymes, including tissue plasminogen activator and elastase, are considered to have arisen by vertical descent from a common ancestor.

Orthologs include genes or their encoded gene products that through, for example, evolution, have diverged in structure or overall activity. For example, where one species encodes a gene product exhibiting two functions and where such functions have been separated into distinct genes in a second species, the three genes and their corresponding products are considered to be orthologs. For the production of a biochemical product, those skilled in the art will understand that the orthologous gene harboring the metabolic activity to be introduced or disrupted is to be chosen for construction of the non-naturally occurring microorganism. An example of orthologs exhibiting separable activities is where distinct activities have been separated into distinct gene products between two or more species or within a single species. A specific example is the separation of elastase proteolysis and plasminogen proteolysis, two types of serine protease activity, into distinct molecules as plasminogen activator and elastase. A second example is the separation of mycoplasma 5′-3′ exonuclease and Drosophila DNA polymerase III activity. The DNA polymerase from the first species can be considered an ortholog to either or both of the exonuclease or the polymerase from the second species and vice versa.

In contrast, paralogs are homologs related by, for example, duplication followed by evolutionary divergence and have similar or common, but not identical functions. Paralogs can originate or derive from, for example, the same species or from a different species. For example, microsomal epoxide hydrolase (epoxide hydrolase I) and soluble epoxide hydrolase (epoxide hydrolase II) can be considered paralogs because they represent two distinct enzymes, co-evolved from a common ancestor, that catalyze distinct reactions and have distinct functions in the same species. Paralogs are proteins from the same species with significant sequence similarity to each other suggesting that they are homologous, or related through co-evolution from a common ancestor. Groups of paralogous protein families include HipA homologs, luciferase genes, peptidases, and others.

A nonorthologous gene displacement is a nonorthologous gene from one species that can substitute for a referenced gene function in a different species. Substitution includes, for example, being able to perform substantially the same or a similar function in the species of origin compared to the referenced function in the different species. Although generally, a nonorthologous gene displacement will be identifiable as structurally related to a known gene encoding the referenced function, less structurally related but functionally similar genes and their corresponding gene products nevertheless will still fall within the meaning of the term as it is used herein. Functional similarity requires, for example, at least some structural similarity in the active site or binding region of a nonorthologous gene product compared to a gene encoding the function sought to be substituted. Therefore, a nonorthologous gene includes, for example, a paralog or an unrelated gene.

Therefore, in identifying and constructing the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention having muconate biosynthetic capability, those skilled in the art will understand with applying the teaching and guidance provided herein to a particular species that the identification of metabolic modifications can include identification and inclusion or inactivation of orthologs. To the extent that paralogs and/or nonorthologous gene displacements are present in the referenced microorganism that encode an enzyme catalyzing a similar or substantially similar metabolic reaction, those skilled in the art also can utilize these evolutionally related genes.

Orthologs, paralogs and nonorthologous gene displacements can be determined by methods well known to those skilled in the art. For example, inspection of nucleic acid or amino acid sequences for two polypeptides will reveal sequence identity and similarities between the compared sequences. Based on such similarities, one skilled in the art can determine if the similarity is sufficiently high to indicate the proteins are related through evolution from a common ancestor. Algorithms well known to those skilled in the art, such as Align, BLAST, Clustal W and others compare and determine a raw sequence similarity or identity, and also determine the presence or significance of gaps in the sequence which can be assigned a weight or score. Such algorithms also are known in the art and are similarly applicable for determining nucleotide sequence similarity or identity. Parameters for sufficient similarity to determine relatedness are computed based on well known methods for calculating statistical similarity, or the chance of finding a similar match in a random polypeptide, and the significance of the match determined. A computer comparison of two or more sequences can, if desired, also be optimized visually by those skilled in the art. Related gene products or proteins can be expected to have a high similarity, for example, 25% to 100% sequence identity. Proteins that are unrelated can have an identity which is essentially the same as would be expected to occur by chance, if a database of sufficient size is scanned (about 5%). Sequences between 5% and 24% may or may not represent sufficient homology to conclude that the compared sequences are related. Additional statistical analysis to determine the significance of such matches given the size of the data set can be carried out to determine the relevance of these sequences.

Exemplary parameters for determining relatedness of two or more sequences using the BLAST algorithm, for example, can be as set forth below. Briefly, amino acid sequence alignments can be performed using BLASTP version 2.0.8 (Jan. 5, 1999) and the following parameters: Matrix: 0 BLOSUM62; gap open: 11; gap extension: 1; x_dropoff: 50; expect: 10.0; wordsize: 3; filter: on. Nucleic acid sequence alignments can be performed using BLASTN version 2.0.6 (Sep. 16, 1998) and the following parameters: Match: 1; mismatch: −2; gap open: 5; gap extension: 2; x_dropoff: 50; expect: 10.0; wordsize: 11; filter: off. Those skilled in the art will know what modifications can be made to the above parameters to either increase or decrease the stringency of the comparison, for example, and determine the relatedness of two or more sequences.

In some embodiments, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway that includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a beta-ketothiolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, a 2-fumarylacetate reductase, a 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, a trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, a beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, a muconolactone isomerase, a muconate cycloisomerase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, a 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, a muconate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, a cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-maleylacetate aminotransferase, a 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate deaminase, and a muconate cis/trans isomerase.

In particular embodiments, the muconate pathway includes a set of muconate pathway enzymes shown in FIG. 2 and selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase, and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, (4) muconolactone isomerase, (5) muconate cycloisomerase, and (6) a muconate cis/trans isomerase;

B) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-maleylacetate reductase, (4) 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, (5) cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, and (6) muconate cis/trans isomerase;

C) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-maleylacetate reductase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2-maleylacetate aminotransferase and 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, (5) cis-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, and (6) muconate cis/trans isomerase;

D) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, (3) 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and (5) muconate reductase;

E) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-fumarylacetate reductase, (4) 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, and (5) trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase;

F) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-fumarylacetate reductase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase and 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, and (5) trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase.

In some embodiments, a microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 2 can include two or more exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme, including three, four, five, six, that is up to all of the of enzymes in a muconate pathway. The non-naturally occurring microbial organism having at least one exogenous nucleic acid can include a heterologous nucleic acid. A non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 2 can be cultured in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.

In some embodiments, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway that includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, a 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, a 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, a 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase, a 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group) and a 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.

In particular embodiments, the muconate pathway includes a set of muconate pathway enzymes shown in FIG. 3 and selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, (3) 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase;

B) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), (4) 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase; and

C) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group), (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.

In some embodiments, a microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 3 can include two or more exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme, including three, four, that is up to all of the of enzymes in a muconate pathway. The non-naturally occurring microbial organism having at least one exogenous nucleic acid can include a heterologous nucleic acid. A non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 3 can be cultured in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.

In some embodiments, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway that includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of an HODH aldolase, an OHED hydratase, an OHED decarboxylase, an HODH formate-lyase, an HODH dehydrogenase, an OHED formate-lyase, an OHED dehydrogenase, a 6-OHE dehydrogenase, a 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and a muconate reductase.

In particular embodiments, the muconate pathway includes a set of muconate pathway enzymes shown in FIG. 4 and selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) HODH aldolase, (2) OHED hydratase, (3) OHED decarboxylase, (4) 6-OHE dehydrogenase, and (5) muconate reductase;

B) (1) HODH aldolase, (2) OHED hydratase, (3) an enzyme selected from OHED formate-lyase and OHED dehydrogenase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and (5) muconate reductase; and

C) (1) HODH aldolase, (2) an enzyme selected from HODH formate-lyase and HODH dehydrogenase, (3) 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and (5) muconate reductase

In some embodiments, a microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 4 can include two or more exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme, including three, four, five, that is up to all of the of enzymes in a muconate pathway. The non-naturally occurring microbial organism having at least one exogenous nucleic acid can include a heterologous nucleic acid. A non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 4 can be cultured in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.

In some embodiments, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway that includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a lysine aminotransferase, a lysine aminating oxidoreductase, a 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, a 2-aminoadipate deaminase, a muconate reductase, a lysine-2,3-aminomutase, a 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminotransferase, a 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminating oxidoreductase, a 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, and a 3-aminoadipate deaminase.

In particular embodiments, the muconate pathway includes a set of muconate pathway enzymes shown in FIG. 5 and selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) lysine aminotransferase, (2) lysine aminating oxidoreductase, (3) 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, (4) 2-aminoadipate deaminase, and (5) muconate reductase

B) (1) lysine-2,3-aminomutase, (2) 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminotransferase, (3) 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminating oxidoreductase, (4) 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, (5) 3-aminoadipate deaminase, and (6) muconate reductase.

In some embodiments, a microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 5 can include two or more exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme, including three, four, five, six, that is up to all of the of enzymes in a muconate pathway. The non-naturally occurring microbial organism having at least one exogenous nucleic acid can include a heterologous nucleic acid. A non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a pathway exemplified by those shown in FIG. 2 can be cultured in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.

In an additional embodiment, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway, wherein the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of succinyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipyl-CoA, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA, 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipate, and 2,3-dehydroadipate to trans,trans-muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of succinyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipyl-CoA, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate, beta-ketoadipate to 2-maleylacetate, 2-maleylacetate to cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate, cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate to cis,trans-muconate, and cis,trans-muconate to trans,trans-muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of succinyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipyl-CoA, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate, beta-ketoadipate to 2-maleylacetate, 2-maleylacetate to cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate, cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate to cis,trans-muconate, and cis,trans-muconate to trans,trans-muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of succinyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipyl-CoA, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate, beta-ketoadipate to 2-fumarylacetate, 2-fumarylacetate to trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate, and trans-3-hydroxy-4-dienoate to trans,trans-muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of succinyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipyl-CoA, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate, beta-ketoadipate to 2-fumarylacetate, 2-fumarylacetate to trans-3-amino-4-hexendioate, trans-3-amino-4-hexendioate to trans,trans-muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of succinyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipyl-CoA, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate, beta-ketoadipate to beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone, beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone to muconolactone, muconolactone to cis,cis-muconate, cis,cis-muconate to cis,trans-muconate, and cis,trans muconate to trans,trans-muconate. Thus, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism containing at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein, where the enzyme or protein converts the substrates and products of a muconate pathway, such as those shown in FIG. 2.

In an additional embodiment, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway, wherein the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of pyruvate and malonate semialdehyde to 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate, 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate to 4-oxalocrotonate, 4-oxalocrotonate to 2-hydroxy-4-hexendioate, and 2-hydroxy-4-hexendioate to muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of pyruvate and malonate semialdehyde to 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate, 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate, 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate to 2,4-dihydroxyadipate, 2,4-dihydroxyadipate to 2-hydroxy-4-hexendioate, and 2-hydroxy-4-hexendioate to muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of pyruvate and malonate semialdehyde to 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate, 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate, 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexandioate to 2,4-dihydroxyadipate, 2,4-dihydroxyadipate to 3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate, and 3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate to muconate. Thus, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism containing at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein, where the enzyme or protein converts the substrates and products of a muconate pathway, such as those shown in FIG. 3.

In an additional embodiment, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway, wherein the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of pyruvate and succinic semialdehyde to HODH, HODH to 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA, 3-hydroxy adipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipate, and 2,3-dehydroadipate to muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of pyruvate and succinic semialdehyde to HODH, HODH to OHED, OHED to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipate, and 2,3-dehydroadipate to muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of pyruvate and succinic semialdehyde to HODH, HODH to OHED, OHED to 6-OHE, 6-OHE to 2,3-dehydroadipate, and 2,3-dehydroadipate to muconate. Thus, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism containing at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein, where the enzyme or protein converts the substrates and products of a muconate pathway, such as those shown in FIG. 4.

In an additional embodiment, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway, wherein the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of lysine to 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde, 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde to 2-aminoadipate, 2-aminoadipate to 2,3-dehydroadipate, and 2,3-dehydroadipate to muconate. Alternatively, the non-naturally occurring microbial organism comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein that converts a substrate to a product selected from the group consisting of lysine to 3,6-diaminohexanoate, 3,6-diaminohexanoate to 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde, 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde to 3-aminoadipate, 3-aminoadipate to 2,3-dehydroadipate, and 2,3-dehydroadipate to muconate. Thus, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism containing at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding an enzyme or protein, where the enzyme or protein converts the substrates and products of a muconate pathway, such as those shown in FIG. 5.

The invention is described herein with general reference to the metabolic reaction, reactant or product thereof, or with specific reference to one or more nucleic acids or genes encoding an enzyme associated with or catalyzing, or a protein associated with, the referenced metabolic reaction, reactant or product. Unless otherwise expressly stated herein, those skilled in the art will understand that reference to a reaction also constitutes reference to the reactants and products of the reaction. Similarly, unless otherwise expressly stated herein, reference to a reactant or product also references the reaction, and reference to any of these metabolic constituents also references the gene or genes encoding the enzymes that catalyze or proteins involved in the referenced reaction, reactant or product. Likewise, given the well known fields of metabolic biochemistry, enzymology and genomics, reference herein to a gene or encoding nucleic acid also constitutes a reference to the corresponding encoded enzyme and the reaction it catalyzes or a protein associated with the reaction as well as the reactants and products of the reaction.

Muconate can be produced from succinyl-CoA via beta-ketoadipate in a minimum of five enzymatic steps, shown in FIG. 2. In the first step of all pathways, succinyl-CoA is joined to acetyl-CoA by a beta-ketothiolase to form beta-ketoadipyl-CoA (Step A). In one embodiment, the beta-keto functional group is reduced and dehydrated to form 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA (Steps K and L). The CoA moiety is then removed by a CoA hydrolase, transferase or ligase to form 2,3-dehydroadipate (Step M). Finally, 2,3-dehydroadipate is oxidized to form the conjugated diene muconate by an enoate oxidoreductase (Step N).

In other embodiments, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA is converted to beta-ketoadipate by a CoA hydrolase, transferase or ligase (Step B). Beta-ketoadipate is then converted to 2-maleylacetate by maleylacetate reductase (Step O). The beta-ketone of 2-maleylacetate is then reduced to form cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexenoate (Step P). This product is further dehydrated to cis,trans-muconate in Step Q. Step W provides a muconate cis/trans-isomerase to provide trans,trans-muconate.

A similar route entails the conversion of 2-maleylacetate to cis-3-amino-4-hexenoate by an aminotransferase or aminating oxidoreductase (Step R). Deamination of cis-3-amino-4-hexenoate is subsequently carried out to form cis,trans-muconate (Step S).

Alternatively, beta-ketoadipate can be converted to 2-fumarylacetate by action of a fumarylacetate reductase (Step C). Such a reductase can be engineered by directed evolution, for example, of the corresponding maleylacetate reductase. Reduction of the keto group and dehydration provides trans,trans-muconate (Steps D and E). Alternatively, reductive amination, followed by deamination also affords the trans,trans-muconate product (Steps F and G)

In yet another route, beta-ketoadipate can be cyclized to an enol-lactone by beta-ketoadipyl enol-lactone hydrolase (Step H). The double bond in the lactone ring is then shifted by muconolactone isomerase (Step I). Finally, muconolactone is converted to cis,cis-muconate by muconate cycloisomerase (Step J). Muconate cycloisomerase may selectively form the cis,cis isomer of muconate. Further addition of a cis/trans isomerase converts the cis,cis isomer to the favored trans, trans or trans, cis configurations (Steps T and W, which can be incorporated into a single isomerization step).

The pathways detailed in FIG. 2 can achieve a maximum theoretical yield of 1.09 moles muconate per mole glucose utilized under anaerobic and aerobic conditions. With and without aeration, the maximum ATP yield is 1 mole of ATP per glucose utilized at the maximum muconate yield. The first step of this pathway, the condensation of succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA by beta-ketothiolase, has been demonstrated by Applicants is shown below in Example I.

Another pathway for muconate synthesis involves the condensation of pyruvate and malonate semialdehyde, as shown in FIG. 3. Malonate semialdehyde can be formed in the cell by several different pathways. Two example pathways are: 1) decarboxylation of oxaloacetate, and 2) conversion of 2-phosphoglycerate to glycerol which can then be dehydrated to malonate semialdehyde by a diol dehydratase. In one pathway, malonate semialdehyde and pyruvate are condensed to form 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate (Step A). This product is dehydrated to form 4-oxalocrotonate (Step B). 4-Oxalocrotonate is converted to muconate by reduction and dehydration of the 2-keto group (Steps C and D).

Alternately, the 2-keto group of 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate is reduced by an alcohol-forming oxidoreductase (Step E). The product, 2,4-dihydroxyadipate is then dehydrated at the 2- or 4-hydroxy position to form 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate (Step G) or 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate (Step F). Subsequent dehydration yields the diene, muconate (Steps D or H). This pathway is energetically favorable and is useful because it does not require carboxylation steps. Also, the pathway is driven by the stability of the muconate end product.

Several pathways for producing muconate from pyruvate and succinic semialdehyde are detailed in FIG. 4. Such pathways entail aldol condensation of pyruvate with succinic semialdehyde to 4-hydroxy-2-oxoheptane-1,7-dioate (HODH) by HODH aldolase (Step A). In one route, HODH is dehydrated to form 2-oxohept-4-ene-1,7-dioate (OHED) by OHED hydratase (Step B). OHED is then decarboxylated to form 6-oxo-2,3-dehydrohexanoate (6-OHE) (Step C). This product is subsequently oxidized to the diacid and then further oxidized to muconate (Steps F, I).

Alternately, HODH is converted to 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA by a formate-lyase or an acylating decarboxylating dehydrogenase (Step D). The 3-hydroxy group of 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA is then dehydrated to form the enoyl-CoA (Step G). The CoA moiety of 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA is removed by a CoA hydrolase, ligase or transferase (Step H). Finally, 2,3-dehydroadipate is oxidized to muconate by muconate reductase (Step I).

In yet another route, OHED is converted to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA by a formate-lyase or acylating decarboxylating dehydrogenase (Step E). 2,3-Dehydroadipyl-CoA is then transformed to muconate.

Pathways for producing muconate from lysine are detailed in FIG. 5. In one embodiment, lysine is converted to 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde by an aminotransferase or aminating oxidoreductase (Step A). 2-Aminoadipate semialdehyde is then oxidized to form 2-aminoadipate (Step B). The 2-amino group is then deaminated by a 2-aminoadipate deaminase (Step C). The product, 2,3-dehydroadipate is further oxidized to muconate by muconate reductase (Step D).

In an alternate route, the 2-amino group of lysine is shifted to the 3-position by lysine-2,3-aminomutase (Step E). The product, 3,6-diaminohexanoate, is converted to 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde by an aminotransferase or aminating oxidoreductase (Step F). Oxidation of the aldehyde (Step G) and deamination (Step H) yields 2,3-dehydroadipate, which is then converted to muconate (Step D).

All transformations depicted in FIGS. 2-5 fall into the general categories of transformations shown in Table 1. Below is described a number of biochemically characterized genes in each category. Specifically listed are genes that can be applied to catalyze the appropriate transformations in FIGS. 2-5 when properly cloned and expressed.

Table 1 shows the enzyme types useful to convert common central metabolic intermediates into muconate. The first three digits of each label correspond to the first three Enzyme Commission number digits which denote the general type of transformation independent of substrate specificity.

TABLE 1 Label Function 1.1.1.a Oxidoreductase (oxo to alcohol, and reverse) 1.2.1.a Oxidoreductase (acid to oxo) 1.2.1.c Oxidoreductase (2-ketoacid to acyl-CoA) 1.3.1.a Oxidoreductase (alkene to alkane, and reverse) 1.4.1.a Oxidoreductase (aminating) 2.3.1.b Acyltransferase (beta-ketothiolase) 2.3.1.d Acyltransferase (formate C-acyltransferase) 2.6.1.a Aminotransferase 2.8.3.a CoA transferase 3.1.1.a Enol-lactone hydrolase 3.1.2.a CoA hydrolase 4.1.1.a Carboxy-lyase 4.1.2.a Aldehyde-lyase 4.2.1.a Hydro-lyase 4.3.1.a Ammonia-lyase 5.2.1.a Cis/trans isomerase 5.3.3.a Lactone isomerase 5.4.3.a Aminomutase 5.5.1.a Lactone cycloisomerase 6.2.1.a CoA synthetase

Several transformations depicted in FIGS. 2-5 require oxidoreductases that convert a ketone functionality to a hydroxyl group. The conversion of beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA (FIG. 2, Step K) is catalyzed by a 3-oxoacyl-CoA dehydrogenase. The reduction of 2-fumarylacetate to trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate (FIG. 2, Step D) or 2-maleylacetate to cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate (FIG. 2, Step P), is catalyzed by an oxidoreductase that converts a 3-oxoacid to a 3-hydroxyacid. Reduction of the ketone group of 4-oxalocrotonate and 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate to their corresponding hydroxyl group is also catalyzed by enzymes in this family (FIG. 3, Steps C and E).

Exemplary enzymes for converting beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA (FIG. 2, Step K) include 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenases. Such enzymes convert 3-oxoacyl-CoA molecules into 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA molecules and are often involved in fatty acid beta-oxidation or phenylacetate catabolism. For example, subunits of two fatty acid oxidation complexes in E. coli, encoded by fadB and fadJ, function as 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenases (Binstock and Schultz, Methods Enzymol. 71Pt C:403-411 (1981)). Furthermore, the gene products encoded by phaC in Pseudomonas putida U (Olivera et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95:6419-6424 (1998)) and paaC in Pseudomonas fluorescens ST (Di et al., Arch. Microbiol. 188:117-125 (2007)) catalyze the reverse reaction of step B in FIG. 10, that is, the oxidation of 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA to form 3-oxoadipyl-CoA, during the catabolism of phenylacetate or styrene. Note that the reactions catalyzed by such enzymes are reversible. In addition, given the proximity in E. coli of paaH to other genes in the phenylacetate degradation operon (Nogales et al., Microbiology 153:357-365 (2007)) and the fact that paaH mutants cannot grow on phenylacetate (Ismail et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 270:3047-3054 (2003)), it is expected that the E. coli paaH gene encodes a 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 2 below.

TABLE 2 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism fadB 119811 P21177.2 Escherichia coli fadJ 3334437 P77399.1 Escherichia coli paaH 16129356 NP_415913.1 Escherichia coli phaC 26990000 NP_745425.1 Pseudomonas putida paaC 106636095 ABF82235.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens

Additional exemplary oxidoreductases capable of converting 3-oxoacyl-CoA molecules to their corresponding 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA molecules include 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenases. The enzyme from Clostridium acetobutylicum, encoded by hbd, has been cloned and functionally expressed in E. coli (Youngleson et al., J. Bacteriol. 171:6800-6807 (1989)). Additional genes include Hbd1 (C-terminal domain) and Hbd2 (N-terminal domain) in Clostridium kluyveri (Hillmer and Gottschalk, FEBS Lett. 21:351-354 (1972)) and HSD17B10 in Bos taurus (Wakil et al., J. Biol. Chem. 207:631-638 (1954)). Yet other genes demonstrated to reduce acetoacetyl-CoA to 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA are phbB from Zoogloea ramigera (Ploux et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 174:177-182 (1988)) and phaB from Rhodobacter sphaeroides (Alber et al., Mol. Microbiol. 61:297-309 (2006)). The former gene is NADPH-dependent, its nucleotide sequence has been determined (Peoples and Sinskey, Mol. Microbiol. 3:349-357 (1989)) and the gene has been expressed in E. coli. Substrate specificity studies on the gene led to the conclusion that it could accept 3-oxopropionyl-CoA as an alternate substrate (Ploux et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 174:177-182 (1988)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 3 below.

TABLE 3 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism hbd 18266893 P52041.2 Clostridium acetobutylicum Hbd2 146348271 EDK34807.1 Clostridium kluyveri Hbd1 146345976 EDK32512.1 Clostridium kluyveri HSD17B10 3183024 O02691.3 Bos taurus phaB Rhodobacter sphaeroides phbB Zoogloea ramigera

A number of similar enzymes have been found in other species of Clostridia and in Metallosphaera sedula (Berg et al., Science 318:1782-1786 (2007)) as shown in Table 4.

TABLE 4 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism hbd 15895965 NP_349314.1 Clostridium acetobutylicum hbd 20162442 AAM14586.1 Clostridium beijerinckii Msed_1423 146304189 YP_001191505 Metallosphaera sedula Msed_0399 146303184 YP_001190500 Metallosphaera sedula Msed_0389 146303174 YP_001190490 Metallosphaera sedula Msed_1993 146304741 YP_001192057 Metallosphaera sedula

There are various alcohol dehydrogenases for converting 2-maleylacetate to cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexenoate (FIG. 2, Step P), 2-fumarylacetate to trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexenoate (FIG. 2, Step D), 4-oxalocrotonate to 5-hydroxyhex-2-enedioate (FIG. 3, Step C) and 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate to 2,4-dihydroxyadipate (FIG. 3, Step E). Two enzymes capable of converting an oxoacid to a hydroxyacid are encoded by the malate dehydrogenase (mdh) and lactate dehydrogenase (ldhA) genes in E. coli. In addition, lactate dehydrogenase from Ralstonia eutropha has been shown to demonstrate high activities on substrates of various chain lengths such as lactate, 2-oxobutyrate, 2-oxopentanoate and 2-oxoglutarate (Steinbuchel and Schlegel, Eur. J. Biochem. 130:329-334 (1983)). Conversion of alpha-ketoadipate into alpha-hydroxyadipate can be catalyzed by 2-ketoadipate reductase, an enzyme reported to be found in rat and in human placenta (Suda et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 176:610-620 (1976); Suda et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 77:586-591 (1977)). An additional gene for these steps is the mitochondrial 3-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (bdh) from the human heart which has been cloned and characterized (Marks et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267:15459-15463 (1992)). This enzyme is a dehydrogenase that operates on a 3-hydroxyacid. Another exemplary alcohol dehydrogenase converts acetone to isopropanol as was shown in C. beijerinckii (Ismail et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 270:3047-3054 (2003)) and T. brockii (Lamed and Zeikus, Biochem. J. 195:183-190 (1981); Peretz and Burstein, Biochemistry 28:6549-6555 (1989)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 5 below.

TABLE 5 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism mdh 1789632 AAC76268.1 Escherichia coli ldhA 16129341 NP_415898.1 Escherichia coli bdh 177198 AAA58352.1 Homo sapiens adh 60592974 AAA23199.2 Clostridium beijerinckii adh 113443 P14941.1 Thermoanaerobacter brockii

Enzymes in the 1.2.1 family are NAD(P)+-dependent oxidoreductases that convert aldehydes to acids. Reactions catalyzed by enzymes in this family include the oxidation of 6-OHE (FIG. 4, Step F), 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde (FIG. 5, Step B) and 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde (FIG. 5, Step G) to their corresponding acids. An exemplary enzyme is the NAD+-dependent aldehyde dehydrogenases (EC 1.2.1.3). Two aldehyde dehydrogenases found in human liver, ALDH-1 and ALDH-2, have broad substrate ranges for a variety of aliphatic, aromatic and polycyclic aldehydes (Klyosov, A. A., Biochemistry 35:4457-4467 (1996)). Active ALDH-2 has been efficiently expressed in E. coli using the GroEL proteins as chaperonins (Lee et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 298:216-224 (2002)). The rat mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase also has a broad substrate range that includes the enoyl-aldehyde crotonaldehyde (Siew et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 176:638-649 (1976)). The E. coli gene astD also encodes an NAD+-dependent aldehyde dehydrogenase active on succinic semialdehyde (Kuznetsova et al., FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 29:263-279 (2005)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 5 below.

TABLE 6 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism ALDH-2 118504 P05091.2 Homo sapiens ALDH-2 14192933 NP_115792.1 Rattus norvegicus astD 3913108 P76217.1 Escherichia coli

Two transformations in FIG. 4 require conversion of a 2-ketoacid to an acyl-CoA (FIG. 4, Steps D and E) by an enzyme in the EC class 1.2.1. Such reactions are catalyzed by multi-enzyme complexes that catalyze a series of partial reactions which result in acylating oxidative decarboxylation of 2-keto-acids. Exemplary enzymes that can be used include 1) branched-chain 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase, 2) alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, and 3) the pyruvate dehydrogenase multienzyme complex (PDHC). Each of the 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase complexes occupies positions in intermediary metabolism, and enzyme activity is typically tightly regulated (Fries et al., Biochemistry 42:6996-7002 (2003)). The enzymes share a complex but common structure composed of multiple copies of three catalytic components: alpha-ketoacid decarboxylase (E1), dihydrolipoamide acyltransferase (E2) and dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase (E3). The E3 component is shared among all 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase complexes in an organism, while the E1 and E2 components are encoded by different genes. The enzyme components are present in numerous copies in the complex and utilize multiple cofactors to catalyze a directed sequence of reactions via substrate channeling. The overall size of these dehydrogenase complexes is very large, with molecular masses between 4 and 10 million Da (i.e., larger than a ribosome).

Activity of enzymes in the 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase family is normally low or limited under anaerobic conditions in E. coli. Increased production of NADH (or NADPH) could lead to a redox-imbalance, and NADH itself serves as an inhibitor to enzyme function. Engineering efforts have increased the anaerobic activity of the E. coli pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (Kim et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 73:1766-1771 (2001); Kim et al., J. Bacteriol. 190:3851-3858 (2008); Zhou et al., Biotechnol. Lett. 30:335-342 (2008)). For example, the inhibitory effect of NADH can be overcome by engineering an H322Y mutation in the E3 component (Kim et al., J. Bacteriol. 190:3851-3858 (2008)). Structural studies of individual components and how they work together in complex provide insight into the catalytic mechanisms and architecture of enzymes in this family (Aevarsson et al., Nat. Struct. Biol. 6:785-792 (1999); Zhou et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98:14802-14807 (2001)). The substrate specificity of the dehydrogenase complexes varies in different organisms, but generally branched-chain keto-acid dehydrogenases have the broadest substrate range.

Alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (AKGD) converts alpha-ketoglutarate to succinyl-CoA and is the primary site of control of metabolic flux through the TCA cycle (Hansford, R. G., Curr. Top. Bioenerg. 10:217-278 (1980)). Encoded by genes sucA, sucB and lpd in E. coli, AKGD gene expression is downregulated under anaerobic conditions and during growth on glucose (Park et al., Mol. Microbiol. 15:473-482 (1993)). Although the substrate range of AKGD is narrow, structural studies of the catalytic core of the E2 component pinpoint specific residues responsible for substrate specificity (Knapp et al., J. Mol. Biol. 280:655-668 (1998)). The Bacillus subtilis AKGD, encoded by odhAB (E1 and E2) and pdhD (E3, shared domain), is regulated at the transcriptional level and is dependent on the carbon source and growth phase of the organism (Resnekov et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 234:285-296 (1992)). In yeast, the LPD1 gene encoding the E3 component is regulated at the transcriptional level by glucose (Roy and Dawes, J. Gen. Microbiol. 133:925-933 (1987)). The E1 component, encoded by KGD1, is also regulated by glucose and activated by the products of HAP2 and HAP3 (Repetto and Tzagoloff, Moll. Cell. Biol. 9:2695-2705 (1989)). The AKGD enzyme complex, inhibited by products NADH and succinyl-CoA, is known in mammalian systems, as impaired function of has been linked to several neurological diseases (Tretter and dam-Vizi, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond B Biol. Sci. 360:2335-2345 (2005)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 7 below.

TABLE 7 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism sucA 16128701 NP_415254.1 Escherichia coli sucB 16128702 NP_415255.1 Escherichia coli lpd 16128109 NP_414658.1 Escherichia coli odhA 51704265 P23129.2 Bacillus subtilis odhB 129041 P16263.1 Bacillus subtilis pdhD 118672 P21880.1 Bacillus subtilis KGD1 6322066 NP_012141.1 Saccharomyces cerevisiae KGD2 6320352 NP_010432.1 Saccharomyces cerevisiae LPD1 14318501 NP_116635.1 Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Branched-chain 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase complex (BCKAD), also known as 2-oxoisovalerate dehydrogenase, participates in branched-chain amino acid degradation pathways, converting 2-keto acids derivatives of valine, leucine and isoleucine to their acyl-CoA derivatives and CO₂. The complex has been studied in many organisms including Bacillus subtilis (Wang et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 213:1091-1099 (1993)), Rattus norvegicus (Namba et al., J. Biol. Chem. 244:4437-4447 (1969)) and Pseudomonas putida (Sokatch et al., J. Bacteriol. 148:647-652 (1981)). In Bacillus subtilis the enzyme is encoded by genes pdhD (E3 component), bfmBB (E2 component), bfmBAA and bfmBAB (E1 component) (Wang et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 213:1091-1099 (1993)). In mammals, the complex is regulated by phosphorylation by specific phosphatases and protein kinases. The complex has been studied in rat hepatocites (Chicco et al., J. Biol. Chem. 269:19427-19434 (1994)) and is encoded by genes Bckdha (E1 alpha), Bckdhb (E1 beta), Dbt (E2), and Dld (E3). The E1 and E3 components of the Pseudomonas putida BCKAD complex have been crystallized (Aevarsson et al., Nat. Struct. Biol. 6:785-792 (1999); Mattevi et al., Science 255:1544-1550 (1992)) and the enzyme complex has been studied (Sokatch et al., J. Bacteriol. 148:647-652 (1981)). Transcription of the P. putida BCKAD genes is activated by the gene product of bkdR (Hesslinger et al., Mol. Microbiol. 27:477-492 (1998)). In some organisms including Rattus norvegicus (Paxton et al., Biochem. J. 234:295-303 (1986)) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Sinclair et al., Biochem. Mol. Biol. Int. 31:911-9122 (1993)), this complex has been shown to have a broad substrate range that includes linear oxo-acids such as 2-oxobutanoate and alpha-ketoglutarate, in addition to the branched-chain amino acid precursors. The active site of the bovine BCKAD was engineered to favor alternate substrate acetyl-CoA (Meng and Chuang, Biochemistry 33:12879-12885 (1994)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 8 below.

TABLE 8 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism bfmBB 16079459 NP_390283.1 Bacillus subtilis bfmBAA 16079461 NP_390285.1 Bacillus subtilis bfmBAB 16079460 NP_390284.1 Bacillus subtilis pdhD 118672 P21880.1 Bacillus subtilis lpdV 118677 P09063.1 Pseudomonas putida bkdB 129044 P09062.1 Pseudomonas putida bkdA1 26991090 NP_746515.1 Pseudomonas putida bkdA2 26991091 NP_746516.1 Pseudomonas putida Bckdha 77736548 NP_036914.1 Rattus norvegicus Bckdhb 158749538 NP_062140.1 Rattus norvegicus Dbt 158749632 NP_445764.1 Rattus norvegicus Dld 40786469 NP_955417.1 Rattus norvegicus

The pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, catalyzing the conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA, has also been studied. In the E. coli enzyme, specific residues in the E1 component are responsible for substrate specificity (Bisswanger, H., J. Biol. Chem. 256:815-822 (1981); Bremer, J., Eur. J. Biochem. 8:535-540 (1969); Gong et al., J. Biol. Chem. 275:13645-13653 (2000)). As mentioned previously, enzyme engineering efforts have improved the E. coli PDH enzyme activity under anaerobic conditions (Kim et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 73:1766-1771 (2007); Kim et al., J. Bacteriol. 190:3851-3858 (2008); Zhou et al., Biotechnol. Letter. 30:335-342 (2008)). In contrast to the E. coli PDH, the B. subtilis complex is active and required for growth under anaerobic conditions (Nakano et al., J. Bacteriol. 179:6749-6755 (1997)). The Klebsiella pneumoniae PDH, characterized during growth on glycerol, is also active under anaerobic conditions (Menzel et al., J. Biotechnol. 56:135-142 (1997)). Crystal structures of the enzyme complex from bovine kidney (Zhou et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98:14802-14807 (2001)) and the E2 catalytic domain from Azotobacter vinelandii are available (Mattevi et al., Science 255:1544-1550 (1992)). Some mammalian PDH enzymes complexes can react on alternate substrates such as 2-oxobutanoate, although comparative kinetics of Rattus norvegicus PDH and BCKAD indicate that BCKAD has higher activity on 2-oxobutanoate as a substrate (Paxton et al., Biochem. J. 234:295-303 (1986)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 9 below.

TABLE 9 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism aceE 16128107 NP_414656.1 Escherichia coli aceF 16128108 NP_414657.1 Escherichia coli lpd 16128109 NP_414658.1 Escherichia coli pdhA 3123238 P21881.1 Bacillus subtilis pdhB 129068 P21882.1 Bacillus subtilis pdhC 129054 P21883.2 Bacillus subtilis pdhD 118672 P21880.1 Bacillus subtilis aceE 152968699 YP_001333808.1 Klebsiella pneumonia aceF 152968700 YP_001333809.1 Klebsiella pneumonia lpdA 152968701 YP_001333810.1 Klebsiella pneumonia Pdha1 124430510 NP_001004072.2 Rattus norvegicus Pdha2 16758900 NP_446446.1 Rattus norvegicus Dlat 78365255 NP_112287.1 Rattus norvegicus Dld 40786469 NP_955417.1 Rattus norvegicus

As an alternative to the large multienzyme 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase complexes described above, some anaerobic organisms utilize enzymes in the 2-ketoacid oxidoreductase family (OFOR) to catalyze acylating oxidative decarboxylation of 2-keto-acids. Unlike the dehydrogenase complexes, these enzymes contain iron-sulfur clusters, utilize different cofactors, and use ferredoxin or flavodoxin as electron acceptors in lieu of NAD(P)H. While most enzymes in this family are specific to pyruvate as a substrate (POR) some 2-keto-acid:ferredoxin oxidoreductases have been shown to accept a broad range of 2-ketoacids as substrates including alpha-ketoglutarate and 2-oxobutanoate (Fukuda and Wakagi, Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1597_74-80 (2002); Zhang et al., J. Biochem. 120:587-599 (1996)). One such enzyme is the OFOR from the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus tokodaii 7, which contains an alpha and beta subunit encoded by gene ST2300 (Fukuda and Wakagi, supra; Zhang et al., supra). A plasmid-based expression system has been developed for efficiently expressing this protein in E. coli (Fukuda et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 268:5639-5646 (2001)) and residues involved in substrate specificity were determined (Fukuda and Wakagi, supra). Two OFORs from Aeropyrum pernix str. K1 have also been recently cloned into E. coli, characterized, and found to react with a broad range of 2-oxoacids (Nishizawa et al., FEBS Lett. 579_2319-2322 (2005)). The gene sequences of these OFOR enzymes are available, although they do not have GenBank identifiers assigned to date. There is bioinformatic evidence that similar enzymes are present in all archaea, some anaerobic bacteria and amitochondrial eukarya (Fukuda and Wakagi, supra). This class of enzyme is also interesting from an energetic standpoint, as reduced ferredoxin could be used to generate NADH by ferredoxin-NAD reductase (Petitdemange et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta 421:334-337 (1976)). Also, since most of the enzymes are designed to operate under anaerobic conditions, less enzyme engineering may be required relative to enzymes in the 2-keto-acid dehydrogenase complex family for activity in an anaerobic environment. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 10 below.

TABLE 10 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism ST2300 15922633 NP_378302.1 Sulfolobus tokodaii 7

Three transformations fall into the category of oxidoreductases that reduce an alkene to an alkane (EC 1.3.1.-). The conversion of beta-ketoadipate to 2-maleylacetate (FIG. 2, Step O) is also catalyzed by the 2-enoate oxidoreductase maleylacetate reductase (MAR). A similar enzyme converts beta-ketoadipate to 2-fumarylacetate (FIG. 2, Step C). The oxidization of 2,3-dehydroadipate to muconate (FIG. 2, Step N) is catalyzed by a 2-enoate oxidoreductase with muconate reductase functionality.

2-Enoate oxidoreductase enzymes are known to catalyze the NAD(P)H-dependent reduction and oxidation of a wide variety of α, β-unsaturated carboxylic acids and aldehydes (Rohdich et al., J. Biol. Chem. 276:5779-5787 (2001)). In the recently published genome sequence of C. kluyveri, 9 coding sequences for enoate reductases were reported, out of which one has been characterized (Seedorf et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105:2128-2133 (2008)). The enr genes from both C. tyrobutyricum and M. thermoaceticum have been cloned and sequenced and show 59% identity to each other. The former gene is also found to have approximately 75% similarity to the characterized gene in C. kluyveri (Giesel and Simon, Arch. Microbiol. 135:51-57 (1983)). It has been reported based on these sequence results that enr is very similar to the dienoyl CoA reductase in E. coli (fadH) (Rohdich et al., J. Biol. Chem. 276:5779-5787 (2001)). The C. thermoaceticum enr gene has also been expressed in a catalytically active form in E. coli (Rohdich et al., supra). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 11 below.

TABLE 11 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism enr 169405742 ACA54153.1 Clostridium botulinum A3 str enr 2765041 CAA71086.1 Clostridium tyrobutyricum enr 3402834 CAA76083.1 Clostridium kluyveri enr 83590886 YP_430895.1 Moorella thermoacetica fadH 16130976 NP_417552.1 Escherichia coli

MAR is a 2-enoate oxidoreductase catalyzing the reversible reduction of 2-maleylacetate (cis-4-oxohex-2-enedioate) to 3-oxoadipate (FIG. 2, Step O). MAR enzymes naturally participate in aromatic degradation pathways (Camara et al., J. Bacteriol. 191:4905-4915 (2009); Huang et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 72:7238-7245 (2006); Kaschabek and Reineke, J. Bacteriol. 177:320-325 (1995); Kaschabek and Reineke, J. Bacteriol. 175:6075-6081 (1993)). The enzyme activity was identified and characterized in Pseudomonas sp. strain B13 (Kaschabek and Reineke, (1995) supra; Kaschabek and Reineke, (1993) supra), and the coding gene was cloned and sequenced (Kasberg et al., J. Bacteriol. 179:3801-3803 (1997)). Additional MAR genes include clcE gene from Pseudomonas sp. strain B13 (Kasberg et al., supra), macA gene from Rhodococcus opacus (Seibert et al., J. Bacteriol. 175:6745-6754 (1993)), the macA gene from Ralstonia eutropha (also known as Cupriavidus necator) (Seibert et al., Microbiology 150:463-472 (2004)), tfdFII from Ralstonia eutropha (Seibert et al., (1993) supra) and NCgl1112 in Corynebacterium glutamicum (Huang et al., Appl. Environ Microbiol. 72:7238-7245 (2006)). A MAR in Pseudomonas reinekei MT1, encoded by ccaD, was recently identified and the nucleotide sequence is available under the DBJ/EMBL GenBank accession number EF159980 (Camara et al., J. Bacteriol. 191:4905-4915 (2009). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 12 below.

TABLE 12 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism clcE 3913241 O30847.1 Pseudomonas sp. strain B13 macA 7387876 O84992.1 Rhodococcus opacus macA 5916089 AAD55886 Cupriavidus necator tfdFII 1747424 AC44727.1 Ralstonia eutropha JMP134 NCgl1112 19552383 NP_600385 Corynebacterium glutamicum ccaD Pseudomonas reinekei MT1

In Step R of FIG. 2, 2-maleylacetate is transaminated to form 3-amino-4-hexanoate. The conversion of 2-fumarylacetate to trans-3-amino-4-hexenedioate is a similar transformation (FIG. 2, Step F). These reactions are performed by aminating oxidoreductases in the EC class 1.4.1. Enzymes in this EC class catalyze the oxidative deamination of alpha-amino acids with NAD+ or NADP+ as acceptor, and the reactions are typically reversible. Exemplary enzymes include glutamate dehydrogenase (deaminating), encoded by gdhA, leucine dehydrogenase (deaminating), encoded by ldh, and aspartate dehydrogenase (deaminating), encoded by nadX. The gdhA gene product from Escherichia coli (Korber et al., J. Mol. Biol. 234:1270-1273 (1993); McPherson and Wootton, Nucleic Acids Res. 11:5257-5266 (1983)), gdh from Thermotoga maritime (Kort et al., Extremophiles 1:52-60-1997); Lebbink et al., J. Mol. Biol. 280:287-296 (1998); Lebbink et al., J. Mol. Biol. 289:357-369 (1999)), and gdhA1 from Halobacterium salinarum (Ingoldsby et al., Gene 349:237-244 (2005)) catalyze the reversible conversion of glutamate to 2-oxoglutarate and ammonia, while favoring NADP(H), NAD(H), or both, respectively. The ldh gene of Bacillus cereus encodes the LeuDH protein that has a wide of range of substrates including leucine, isoleucine, valine, and 2-aminobutanoate (Ansorge and Kula, Biotechnol. Bioeng. 68:557-562 (2000); Stoyan et al., J. Biotechnol. 54:77-80 (1997)). The nadX gene from Thermotoga maritima encoding for the aspartate dehydrogenase is involved in the biosynthesis of NAD (Yang et al., J. Biol. Chem. 278:8804-8808 (2003)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 13 below.

TABLE 13 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism gdhA 118547 P00370 Escherichia coli gdh 6226595 P96110.4 Thermotoga maritima gdhA1 15789827 NP_279651.1 Halobacterium salinarum ldh 61222614 P0A393 Bacillus cereus nadX 15644391 NP_229443.1 Thermotoga maritima

The conversions of lysine to 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde (FIG. 5, Step A) and 3,6-diaminohexanoate to 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde (FIG. 5, Step F) are catalyzed by aminating oxidoreductases that transform primary amines to their corresponding aldehydes. The lysine 6-dehydrogenase (deaminating), encoded by the lysDH genes, catalyze the oxidative deamination of the 6-amino group of L-lysine to form 2-aminoadipate-6-semialdehyde, which can spontaneously and reversibly cyclize to form Δ¹-piperideine-6-carboxylate (Misono and Nagasaki, J. Bacteriol. 150:398-401 (1982)). Exemplary enzymes are found in Geobacillus stearothermophilus (Heydari et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 70:937-942 (2004)), Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Hashimoto et al., J. Biochem. 106:76-80 (1989), Misono and Nagasaki, supra), and Achromobacter denitrificans (Ruldeekulthamrong et al., BMB. Rep. 41:790-795 (2008)). Such enzymes can convert 3,6-diaminohexanoate to 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde given the structural similarity between 3,6-diaminohexanoate and lysine. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 14 below.

TABLE 14 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism lysDH 13429872 BAB39707 Geobacillus stearothermophilus lysDH 15888285 NP_353966 Agrobacterium tumefaciens lysDH 74026644 AAZ94428 Achromobacter denitrificans

FIG. 2, step A uses a 3-oxoadipyl-CoA thiolase, or equivalently, succinyl CoA:acetyl CoA acyl transferase (β-ketothiolase). The gene products encoded by pcaF in Pseudomonas strain B13 (Kaschabek et al., J. Bacteriol. 184:207-215 (2002)), phaD in Pseudomonas putida U (Olivera et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S.A. 95:6419-6424 (1998)), paaE in Pseudomonas fluorescens ST (Di et al., Arch. Micbrobiol. 188:117-125 (2007)), and paaJ from E. coli (Nogales et al., Microbiology 153:357-365 (2007)) catalyze the conversion of 3-oxoadipyl-CoA into succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA during the degradation of aromatic compounds such as phenylacetate or styrene. Since beta-ketothiolase enzymes catalyze reversible transformations, these enzymes can also be employed for the synthesis of 3-oxoadipyl-CoA. Several beta-ketothiolases were shown to have significant and selective activities in the oxoadipyl-CoA forming direction as shown in Example I below including bkt from Pseudomonas putida, pcaF and bkt from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, bkt from Burkholderia ambifaria AMMD, paaJ from E. coli, and phaD from P. putida. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 15 below.

TABLE 15 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism paaJ 16129358 NP_415915.1 Escherichia coli pcaF 17736947 AAL02407 Pseudomonas knackmussii (B13) phaD 3253200 AAC24332.1 Pseudomonas putida pcaF 506695 AAA85138.1 Pseudomonas putida paaE 106636097 ABF82237.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens bkt Burkholderia ambifaria AMMD bkt Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 pcaF Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1

The acylation of ketoacids HODH and OHED to their corresponding CoA derivatives (FIG. 4, Steps D and E) and concurrent release of formate, is catalyzed by formate C-acyltransferase enzymes in the EC class 2.3.1. Enzymes in this class include pyruvate formate-lyase and ketoacid formate-lyase. Pyruvate formate-lyase (PFL, EC 2.3.1.54), encoded by pflB in E. coli, converts pyruvate into acetyl-CoA and formate. The active site of PFL contains a catalytically essential glycyl radical that is posttranslationally activated under anaerobic conditions by PFL-activating enzyme (PFL-AE, EC 1.97.1.4) encoded by pflA (Knappe et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 81:1332-1335 (1984); Wong et al., Biochemistry 32:14102-14110 (1993)). A pyruvate formate-lyase from Archaeglubus fulgidus encoded by pflD has been cloned, expressed in E. coli and characterized (Lehtio and Goldman, Protein Eng Des Sel 17:545-552 (2004)). The crystal structures of the A. fulgidus and E. coli enzymes have been resolved (Lehtio et al., J. Mol. Biol. 357:221-235 (2006); Leppanen et al., Structure 7:733-744 (1999)). Additional PFL and PFL-AE enzymes are found in Clostridium pasteurianum (Weidner and Sawyers, J. Bacteriol. 178:2440-2444 (1996)) and the eukaryotic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Hemschemeier et al., Eukaryot. Cell 7:518_526 (2008)). Keto-acid formate-lyase (EC 2.3.1.-), also known as 2-ketobutyrate formate-lyase (KFL) and pyruvate formate-lyase 4, is the gene product of tdcE in E. coli. This enzyme catalyzes the conversion of 2-ketobutyrate to propionyl-CoA and formate during anaerobic threonine degradation, and can also substitute for pyruvate formate-lyase in anaerobic catabolism (Simanshu et al., J. Biosci. 32:1195-1206 (2007)). The enzyme is oxygen-sensitive and, like PflB, requires post-translational modification by PFL-AE to activate a glycyl radical in the active site (Hesslinger et al., Mol. Microbiol. 27:477-492 (1998)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 16 below.

TABLE 16 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism pflB 16128870 NP_415423.1 Escherichia coli pflA 16128869 NP_415422.1 Escherichia coli tdcE 48994926 AAT48170.1 Escherichia coli pflD 11499044 NP_070278.1 Archaeglubus fulgidus pfl 2500058 Q46266.1 Clostridium pasteurianum act 1072362 CAA63749.1 Clostridium pasteurianum pfl1 159462978 XP_001689719.1 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii pflA1 159485246 XP_001700657.1 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Several reactions in FIGS. 2 and 5 are catalyzed by aminotransferases in the EC class 2.6.1 (FIG. 2, Steps F and R and FIG. 5, Steps A and F). Such enzymes reversibly transfer amino groups from aminated donors to acceptors such as pyruvate and alpha-ketoglutarate. The conversion of lysine to 2-aminoadipate (FIG. 5, Step A) is naturally catalyzed by lysine-6-aminotransferase (EC 2.6.1.36). This enzyme function has been demonstrated in yeast and bacteria. Enzymes from Candida utilis (Hammer et al J. Basic Microbiol. 32:21-27 (1992)), Flavobacterium lutescens (Fuji et al. J. Biochem. 128:391-397 (2000)) and Streptomyces clavuligenus (Romero et al. J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 18:241-246 (1997)) have been characterized. A recombinant lysine-6-aminotransferase from S. clavuligenus was functionally expressed in E. coli (Tobin et al J. Bacteriol. 173:6223-6229 (1991)). The F. lutescens enzyme is specific to alpha-ketoglutarate as the amino acceptor (Soda et al. Biochemistry 7:4110-4119 (1968)). Lysine-6-aminotransferase is also an enzyme that can catalyze the transamination of 3,6-diaminohexanoate (FIG. 5, Step F), as this substrate is structurally similar to lysine. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 17 below.

TABLE 17 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism lat 10336502 BAB13756.1 Flavobacterium lutescens lat 153343 AAA26777.1 Streptomyces clavuligenus

In Steps R and F of FIG. 2 the beta-ketones of 2-maleylacetate and 2-fumarylacetate, respectively, are converted to secondary amines. Beta-alanine/alpha-ketoglutarate aminotransferase (WO08027742) reacts with beta-alanine to form malonic semialdehyde, a 3-oxoacid similar in structure to 2-maleylacetate. The gene product of SkPYD4 in Saccharomyces kluyveri was shown to preferentially use beta-alanine as the amino group donor (Andersen and Hansen, Gene 124:105-109 (1993)). SkUGA1 encodes a homologue of Saccharomyces cerevisiae GABA aminotransferase, UGA1 (Ramos et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 149:401-404 (1985)), whereas SkPYD4 encodes an enzyme involved in both -alanine and GABA transamination (Andersen and Hansen, supra). 3-Amino-2-methylpropionate transaminase catalyzes the transformation from methylmalonate semialdehyde to 3-amino-2-methylpropionate. The enzyme has been characterized in Rattus norvegicus and Sus scrofa and is encoded by Abat (Kakimoto et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta 156:374-380 (1968); Tamaki et al., Methods Enzymol. 324:376-389 (2000)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 18 below.

TABLE 18 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism SkyPYD4 98626772 ABF58893.1 Lachancea kluyveri SkUGA1 98626792 ABF58894.1 Lachancea kluyveri UGA1 6321456 NP_011533.1 Saccharomyces cerevisiae Abat 122065191 P50554.3 Rattus norvegicus Abat 120968 P80147.2 Sus scrofa

Another enzyme that can catalyze the aminotransferase reactions in FIGS. 2 and 5 is gamma-aminobutyrate transaminase (GABA transaminase), which naturally interconverts succinic semialdehyde and glutamate to 4-aminobutyrate and alpha-ketoglutarate and is known to have a broad substrate range (Liu et al., Biochemistry 43:10896-10905 (2004); Shigeoka and Nakano, Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 288:22-28 (1991); Schulz et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 56:1-6 (1990)). E. coli has two GABA transaminases, encoded by gabT (Bartsch and Schulz, J. Bacteriol. 172:7035-7042 (1990)) and puuE (Kurihara et al., J. Biol. Chem. 280:4602-4608 (2005)). GABA transaminases in Mus musculus, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Sus scrofa have been shown to react with alternate substrates (Cooper, A. J., Methods Enzymol. 113:80-82 (1985); Scott and Jakoby, J. Biol. Chem. 234:932-936 (19590. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 19 below.

TABLE 19 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism gabT 16130576 NP_417148.1 Escherichia coli puuE 16129263 P_415818.1 Escherichia coli aba 37202121 NP_766549.2 Mus musculus gabT 70733692 YP_257332.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens aba 47523600 NP_999428.1 Sus scrofa

CoA transferases catalyze the reversible transfer of a CoA moiety from one molecule to another. Conversion of beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate (FIG. 2, Step B) is accompanied by the acylation of succinate by beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase. The de-acylation of 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA (FIG. 2, Step M and FIG. 4, Step H) can also be catalyzed by an enzyme in the 2.8.3 family.

Beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase (EC 2.8.3.6), also known as succinyl-CoA:3:oxoacid-CoA transferase, is encoded by pcaI and pcaf in Pseudomonas putida (Kaschabek et al., J. Bacteriol. 184:207-215 (2002)). Similar enzymes based on homology exist in Acinetobacter sp. ADP1 (Kowalchuk et al., Gene 146:23-30 (1994)). Additional exemplary succinyl-CoA:3:oxoacid-CoA transferases are present in Helicobacter pylori (Corthesy-Theulaz et al., J. Biol. Chem. 272:25659-25667 (1997)) and Bacillus subtilis (Stols et al., Protein Expr. Purif. 53:396-403 (2007)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 20 below.

TABLE 20 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism pcaI 24985644 AAN69545.1 Pseudomonas putida pcaJ 26990657 NP_746082.1 Pseudomonas putida pcaI 50084858 YP_046368.1 Acinetobacter sp. ADP1 pcaJ 141776 AAC37147.1 Acinetobacter sp. ADP1 pcaI 21224997 NP_630776.1 Streptomyces coelicolor pcaJ 21224996 NP_630775.1 Streptomyces coelicolor HPAG1_0676 108563101 YP_627417 Helicobacter pylori HPAG1_0677 108563102 YP_627418 Helicobacter pylori ScoA 16080950 NP_391778 Bacillus subtilis ScoB 16080949 NP_391777 Bacillus subtilis

The glutaconyl-CoA-transferase (EC 2.8.3.12) enzyme from anaerobic bacterium Acidaminococcus fermentans reacts with glutaconyl-CoA and 3-butenoyl-CoA (Mack et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 226:41-51 (1994)), substrates similar in structure to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA. The genes encoding this enzyme are gctA and gctB. This enzyme has reduced but detectable activity with other CoA derivatives including glutaryl-CoA, 2-hydroxyglutaryl-CoA, adipyl-CoA and acrylyl-CoA (Buckel et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 118:315-321 (1981)). The enzyme has been cloned and expressed in E. coli (Mack, supra). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 21 below.

TABLE 21 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism gctA 559392 CAA57199.1 Acidaminococcus fermentans gctB 559393 CAA57200.1 Acidaminococcus fermentans

Other exemplary CoA transferases are catalyzed by the gene products of cat1, cat2, and cat3 of Clostridium kluyveri which have been shown to exhibit succinyl-CoA, 4-hydroxybutyryl-CoA, and butyryl-CoA transferase activity, respectively (Seedorf et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S.A. 105:2128-2133 (2008); Sohling and Gottschalk, J. Bacteriol. 178:871-880 (1996)). Similar CoA transferase activities are also present in Trichomonas vaginalis (van Grinsven et al., J. Biol. Chem. 283:1411-1418 (2008)) and Trypanosoma brucei (Riviere et al., J. Biol. Chem. 279:45337-45346 (2004)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 22 below.

TABLE 22 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism cat1 729048 P38946.1 Clostridium kluyveri cat2 172046066 P38942.2 Clostridium kluyveri cat3 146349050 EDK35586.1 Clostridium kluyveri TVAG_395550 123975034 XP_001330176 Trichomonas vaginalis G3 Tb11.02.0290 71754875 XP_828352 Trypanosoma brucei

A CoA transferase that can utilize acetyl-CoA as the CoA donor is acetoacetyl-CoA transferase, encoded by the E. coli atoA (alpha subunit) and atoD (beta subunit) genes (Korolev et al., Acta Crystallagr. D. Biol. Crystallagr. 58:2116-2121 (2002); Vanderwinkel et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 33:902-908 (1968)). This enzyme has a broad substrate range (Sramek and Frerman, Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 171:14-26 (1975)) and has been shown to transfer the CoA moiety to acetate from a variety of branched and linear acyl-CoA substrates, including isobutyrate (Matthies and Schink, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 58:1435-1439 (1992)), valerate (Vanderwinkel et al, supra) and butanoate (Vanderwinkel et al, supra). This enzyme is induced at the transcriptional level by acetoacetate, so modification of regulatory control may be necessary for engineering this enzyme into a pathway (Pauli and Overath, Eur. J. Biochem. 29:553-562 (1972)). Similar enzymes exist in Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 (Duncan et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 68:5186-5190 (2002)), Clostridium acetobutylicum (Cary et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 56:1576-1583 (1990); Weisenborn et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 55:323-329 (1989)), and Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum (Kosaka et al., Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem. 71:58-58 (2007)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 23 below.

TABLE 23 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism atoA 2492994 P76459.1 Escherichia coli atoD 2492990 P76458.1 Escherichia coli actA 62391407 YP_226809.1 Corynebacterium glutamicum cg0592 62389399 YP_224801.1 Corynebacterium glutamicum ctfA 15004866 NP_149326.1 Clostridium acetobutylicum ctfB 15004867 NP_149327.1 Clostridium acetobutylicum ctfA 31075384 AAP42564.1 Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum ctfB 31075385 AAP42565.1 Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum

In Step H of FIG. 2, the lactonization of beta-ketoadipate to form β-ketoadipate-enol-lactone is be catalyzed by the beta-ketoadipate enol-lactonase (EC-3.1.1.24). Beta-ketoadipate enol-lactonase also participates in the catechol branch of the beta-ketoadipate pathway to degrade aromatic compounds, in the reverse direction of that required in Step H of FIG. 2. This enzyme is encoded by the pcaD gene in Pseudomonas putida (Hughes et al., J. Gen Microbiol. 134:2877-2887 (1988)), Rhodococcus opacus (Eulberg et al., J. Bacteriol. 180:1072-1081 (1998)) and Ralstonia eutropha. In Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, genes encoding two β-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolases were identified (Patel et al., J. Biol. Chem. 250:6567 (1975)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 24 below.

TABLE 24 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism ELH 6015088 Q59093 Acinetobacter calcoaceticus ELH2 6166146 P00632 Acinetobacter calcoaceticus pcaD 24982842 AAN67003 Pseudomonas putida pcaD 75426718 O67982 Rhodococcus opacus pcaD 75411823 javascript:Blast2(‘Q9EV41’)Q9EV45 Ralstonia eutropha

The hydrolysis of acyl-CoA molecules to their corresponding acids is carried out by acyl CoA hydrolase enzymes in the 3.1.2 family, also called thioesterases. Several eukaryotic acetyl-CoA hydrolases (EC 3.1.2.1) have broad substrate specificity and thus represent suitable enzymes for hydrolyzing beta-ketoadipyl-CoA and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA (FIG. 2, Steps B and M and FIG. 4, Step H). For example, the enzyme from Rattus norvegicus brain (Robinson et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 71:959-965 (1976)) can react with butyryl-CoA, hexanoyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA. The enzyme from the mitochondrion of the pea leaf also has a broad substrate specificity, with demonstrated activity on acetyl-CoA, propionyl-CoA, butyryl-CoA, palmitoyl-CoA, oleoyl-CoA, succinyl-CoA, and crotonyl-CoA (Zeiher and Randall, Plant Physiol. 94:20-27 (1990)). The acetyl-CoA hydrolase, ACH1, from S. cerevisiae represents another hydrolase (Buu et al., J. Biol. Chem. 278:17203-17209 (2003)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 25 below.

TABLE 25 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism acot12 18543355 NP_570103.1 Rattus norvegicus ACH1 6319456 NP_009538 Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Another hydrolase is the human dicarboxylic acid thioesterase, acot8, which exhibits activity on glutaryl-CoA, adipyl-CoA, suberyl-CoA, sebacyl-CoA, and dodecanedioyl-CoA (Westin et al., J. Biol. Chem. 280:38125-28132 (2005)) and the closest E. coli homolog, tesB, which can also hydrolyze a broad range of CoA thioesters (Naggert et al., J. Biol. Chem. 266:11044-11050 (1991)). A similar enzyme has also been characterized in the rat liver (Deana, R., Biochem. Int. 26:767-773 (1992)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 26 below.

TABLE 26 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism tesB 16128437 NP_414986 Escherichia coli acot8 3191970 CAA15502 Homo sapiens acot8 51036669 NP_570112 Rattus norvegicus

Other potential E. coli thioester hydrolases include the gene products of tesA (Bonner and Bloch, J. Biol. Chem. 247:3123-3133 (1972)), ybgC (Kuznetsova et al., FEBS Microbiol. Rev. 29:263-279 (2005); Zhuang et al., FEBS Lett. 516:161-163 (2002)), paaI (Song et al., J. Biol. Chem. 281:11028-11038 (2006)), and ybdB (Leduc et al., J. Bacteriol. 1889:7112-7126 (2007)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 27 below.

TABLE 27 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism teas 16128478 NP_415027 Escherichia coli ybgC 16128711 NP_415264 Escherichia coli paaI 16129357 NP_415914 Escherichia coli ybdB 16128580 NP_415129 Escherichia coli

Yet another hydrolase is the glutaconate CoA-transferase from Acidaminococcus fermentans. This enzyme was transformed by site-directed mutagenesis into an acyl-CoA hydrolase with activity on glutaryl-CoA, acetyl-CoA and 3-butenoyl-CoA (Mack and Buckel, FEBS Lett. 405:209-212 (1997)), compounds similar in structure to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA. This indicates that the enzymes encoding succinyl-CoA:3-ketoacid-CoA transferases and acetoacetyl-CoA:acetyl-CoA transferases can also serve as enzymes for this reaction step but would require certain mutations to change their function. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 28 below.

TABLE 28 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism gctA 559392 CAA57199 Acidaminococcus fermentans gctB 559393 CAA57200 Acidaminococcus fermentans

Step C of FIG. 4 is catalyzed by a 2-ketoacid decarboxylase that generates 6-oxo-2,3-dehydrohexanoate (6-OHE) from 2-oxohept-4-ene-1,7-dioate (OHED). The decarboxylation of keto-acids is catalyzed by a variety of enzymes with varied substrate specificities, including pyruvate decarboxylase (EC 4.1.1.1), benzoylformate decarboxylase (EC 4.1.1.7), alpha-ketoglutarate decarboxylase and branched-chain alpha-ketoacid decarboxylase. Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC), also termed keto-acid decarboxylase, is a key enzyme in alcoholic fermentation, catalyzing the decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetaldehyde. The enzyme from Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a broad substrate range for aliphatic 2-keto acids including 2-ketobutyrate, 2-ketovalerate, 3-hydroxypyruvate and 2-phenylpyruvate (22). This enzyme has been extensively studied, engineered for altered activity, and functionally expressed in E. coli (Killenberg-Jabs et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 268:1698-1704 (2001); Li and Jordan, Biochemistry 38:10004-10012 (1999); ter Schure et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol 64:1303-1307 (1998)). The PDC from Zymomonas mobilus, encoded by pdc, also has a broad substrate range and has been a subject of directed engineering studies to alter the affinity for different substrates (Siegert et al., Protein Eng Des Sel 18:345-357 (2005)). The crystal structure of this enzyme is available (Killenberg-Jabs, et al., supra). Other well-characterized PDC enzymes include the enzymes from Acetobacter pasteurians (Chandra et al., Arch. Microbiol. 176:443-451 (2001)) and Kluyveromyces lactis (Krieger et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 269:3256-3263 (2002)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 29 below.

TABLE 29 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism pdc 118391 P06672.1 Zymomonas mobilus pdc1 30923172 P06169 Saccharomyces cerevisiae pdc 20385191 AM21208 Acetobacter pasteurians pdc1 52788279 Q12629 Kluyveromyces lactis

Like PDC, benzoylformate decarboxylase (EC 4.1.1.7) has a broad substrate range and has been the target of enzyme engineering studies. The enzyme from Pseudomonas putida has been extensively studied and crystal structures of this enzyme are available (Hasson et al., Biochemistry 37:9918-9930 (1998); Polovnikova et al., Biochemistry 42:1820-1830 (2003)). Site-directed mutagenesis of two residues in the active site of the Pseudomonas putida enzyme altered the affinity (Km) of naturally and non-naturally occurring substrates (Siegert et al., Protein Eng Des Sel 18:345-357 (2005)). The properties of this enzyme have been further modified by directed engineering (Lingen et al., Protein Eng. 15:585-593 (2002); Lingen et al., Chembiochem. 4:721-726 (2003)). The enzyme from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, encoded by mdlC, has also been characterized experimentally (Barrowman et al., FEMS Microbiology Letters 34:57-60 (1986)). Additional genes from Pseudomonas stutzeri, Pseudomonas fluorescens and other organisms can be inferred by sequence homology or identified using a growth selection system developed in Pseudomonas putida (Henning et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 72:7510-7517 (2006)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 30 below.

TABLE 30 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism mdlC 3915757 P20906.2 Pseudomonas putida mdlC 81539678 Q9HUR2.1 Pseudomonas aeruginosa dpgB 126202187 ABN80423.1 Pseudomonas stutzeri ilvB-1 70730840 YP_260581.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens

A third enzyme capable of decarboxylating 2-oxoacids is alpha-ketoglutarate decarboxylase (KGD). The substrate range of this class of enzymes has not been studied to date. The KDC from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Tian et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S. A. 102:10670-10675 (2005)) has been cloned and functionally expressed, although it is large (˜130 kD) and GC-rich. KDC enzyme activity has been detected in several species of rhizobia including Bradyrhizobium japonicum and Mesorhizobium loti (Green et al., J. Bacteriol. 182:2838-2844 (2000)). Although the KDC-encoding gene(s) have not been isolated in these organisms, the genome sequences are available and several genes in each genome are annotated as putative KDCs. A KDC from Euglena gracilis has also been characterized but the gene associated with this activity has not been identified to date (Shigeoka and Nakano, Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 288:22-28 (1991)). The first twenty amino acids starting from the N-terminus were sequenced MTYKAPVKDVKFLLDKVFKV (Shigeoka and Nakano, supra). The gene could be identified by testing genes containing this N-terminal sequence for KDC activity. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 31 below.

TABLE 31 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism kgd 160395583 O50463.4 Mycobacterium tuberculosis kgd 27375563 NP_767092.1 Bradyrhizobium japonicum kgd 13473636 NP_105204.1 Mesorhizobium loti

A fourth enzyme for catalyzing this reaction is branched chain alpha-ketoacid decarboxylase (BCKA). This class of enzyme has been shown to act on a variety of compounds varying in chain length from 3 to 6 carbons (Oku and Kaneda, J. Bio. Chem. 263:18386-18396 (1988); Smit et al., App. Environ. Microbiol. 71:303-311 (2005)). The enzyme in Lactococcus lactis has been characterized on a variety of branched and linear substrates including 2-oxobutanoate, 2-oxohexanoate, 2-oxopentanoate, 3-methyl-2-oxobutanoate, 4-methyl-2-oxobutanoate and isocaproate (Smit et al., supra). The enzyme has been structurally characterized (Berg et al., Science 318:1782-1786 (2007)). Sequence alignments between the Lactococcus lactis enzyme and the pyruvate decarboxylase of Zymomonas mobilus indicate that the catalytic and substrate recognition residues are nearly identical (Siegert et al., Protein Eng Des Sel 18:345-357 (2005)), so this enzyme can be subjected to directed engineering. Decarboxylation of alpha-ketoglutarate by a BCKA was detected in Bacillus subtilis; however, this activity was low (5%) relative to activity on other branched-chain substrates (Oku and Kaneda, supra) and the gene encoding this enzyme has not been identified to date. Additional BCKA genes can be identified by homology to the Lactococcus lactis protein sequence. Many of the high-scoring BLASTp hits to this enzyme are annotated as indolepyruvate decarboxylases (EC 4.1.1.74). Indolepyruvate decarboxylase (IPDA) is an enzyme that catalyzes the decarboxylation of indolepyruvate to indoleacetaldehyde in plants and plant bacteria. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 32 below.

TABLE 32 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism kdcA 44921617 AAS49166.1 Lactococcus lactis

Recombinant branched chain alpha-keto acid decarboxylase enzymes derived from the E1 subunits of the mitochondrial branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenase complex from Homo sapiens and Bos taurus have been cloned and functionally expressed in E. coli (Davie et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267:16601-16606 (1992); Wynn et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267:1881-1887 (1992); Wynn et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267:12400-12403 (1992)). It was indicated that co-expression of chaperonins GroEL and GroES enhanced the specific activity of the decarboxylase by 500-fold (Wynn (1992) supra). These enzymes are composed of two alpha and two beta subunits. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 33 below.

TABLE 33 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism BCKDHB 34101272 NP_898871.1 Homo sapiens BCKDHA 11386135 NP_000700.1 Homo sapiens BCKDHB 115502434 P21839 Bos taurus BCKDHA 129030 P11178 Bos taurus

Aldehyde lyases in EC class 4.1.2 catalyze two key reactions in the disclosed pathways to muconate (FIG. 3, Step A and FIG. 4, Step A). HOHD aldolase, also known as HHED aldolase, catalyzes the conversion of 4-hydroxy-2-oxo-heptane-1,7-dioate (HOHD) into pyruvate and succinic semialdehyde (FIG. 4, Step A). HODH aldolase is a divalent metal ion-dependent class II aldolase, catalyzing the final step of 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid degradation in E. coli C, E. coli W, and other organisms. In the native context, the enzyme functions in the degradative direction. The reverse (condensation) reaction is thermodynamically unfavorable; however the equilibrium can be shifted through coupling HOHD aldolase with downstream pathway enzymes that work efficiently on reaction products. Such strategies have been effective for shifting the equilibrium of other aldolases in the condensation direction (Nagata et al., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 44:432-438 (1995); Pollard et al., App. Environ. Microbiol. 64:4093-4094 (1998)). The E. coli C enzyme, encoded by hpcH, has been extensively studied and has recently been crystallized (Rea et al., J. Mol. Biol. 373:866-876 (2007); Stringfellow et al., Gene 166:73-76 (1995)). The E. coli W enzyme is encoded by hpaI (Prieto et al., J. Bacteriol. 178:111-120 (1996)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 34 below.

TABLE 34 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism hpcH 633197 CAA87759.1 Escherichia coli C hpaI 38112625 AAR11360.1 Escherichia coli W

In Step A of FIG. 3, pyruvate and malonate semialdehyde are joined by an aldehyde lyase to form 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate. An enzyme catalyzing this exact reaction has not been characterized to date. A similar reaction is catalyzed by 2-dehydro-3-deoxyglucarate aldolase (DDGA, EC 4.1.2.20), a type II aldolase that participates in the catabolic pathway for D-glucarate/galactarate utilization in E. coli. Tartronate semialdehyde, the natural substrate of DDGA, is similar in size and structure to malonate semialdehyde. This enzyme has a broad substrate specificity and has been shown to reversibly condense a wide range of aldehydes with pyruvate (Fish and Blumenthal, Methods Enzymol. 9:529-534 (1966)). The crystal structure of this enzyme has been determined and a catalytic mechanism indicated (Izard and Blackwell, EMBO J. 19:3849-3856 (2000)). Other DDGA enzymes are found in Leptospira interrogans (Li et al., Acta Crystallogr. Sect. F. Struct. Biol. Cryst. Commun. 62:1269-1270 (2006)) and Sulfolobus solfataricus (Buchanan et al., Biochem. J. 343 Pt 3:563-570 (1999)). The S. solfataricus enzyme is highly thermostable and was cloned and expressed in E. coli (Buchanan et al., supra). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 35 below.

TABLE 35 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism garL 1176153 P23522.2 Escherichia coli LA_1624 24195249 AAN48823.1 Leptospira interrogans AJ224174.1:1 . . . 885 2879782 CAA11866.1 Sulfolobus solfataricus

The pathways in FIGS. 2-4 employ numerous enzymes in the dehydratase class of enzymes (EC 4.1.2). Several reactions in FIGS. 2 and 3 undergo dehydration reactions similar to the dehydration of malate to fumarate, catalyzed by fumarate hydratase (EC 4.2.1.2). These transformations include the dehydration of 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate (FIG. 2, Steps E and Q and FIG. 3, Step H), 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate (FIG. 3, Step B), 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate (FIG. 3, Step D) and 2,4-dihydroxyadipate (FIG. 3, Steps F and G). Fumarate hydratase enzymes are exemplary enzymes for catalyzing these reactions. The E. coli fumarase encoded by fumC dehydrates a variety of alternate substrates including tartrate and threo-hydroxyaspartate (Teipel et al., J. Biol. Chem. 243:5684-5694 (1968)). A wealth of structural information is available for the E. coli enzyme and researchers have successfully engineered the enzyme to alter activity, inhibition and localization (Weaver, T., Acta Crystallogr. D Biol. Crystallagr. 61:1395-1401 (2005)). Exemplary fumarate hydratase enzymes are found in Escherichia coli (Estevez et al., Protein Sci. 11:1552-1557 (2002); Hong and Lee, Biotechnol. Bioprocess Eng. 9:252-255 (2006); Rose and Weaver, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 101:3393-3397 (2004)); Agnihotri and Liu, Bioorg. Med. Chem. 11:9-20 (2003)), Corynebacterium glutamicum (Genda et al., Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem. 71:1102-1109 (2006)), Campylobacter jejuni (Smith and Gray, Catalysis Letters 6:195-199 (1990)), Thermus thermophilus (Mizobata et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 355:49-55 (1998)), and Rattus norvegicus (Kobayashi et al., J. Biochem. 89:1923-1931 (1981)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 36 below.

TABLE 36 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism fumC 120601 P05042.1 Escherichia coli K12 fumC 39931596 Q8NRN8.1 Corynebacterium glutamicum fumC 9789756 O69294.1 Campylobacter jejuni fumC 75427690 P84127 Thermus thennophilus fumH 120605 P14408.1 Rattus norvegicus

Another enzyme for catalyzing these reactions is citramalate hydrolyase (EC 4.2.1.34), an enzyme that naturally dehydrates 2-methylmalate to mesaconate. This enzyme has been studied in Methanocaldococcus jannaschii in the context of the pyruvate pathway to 2-oxobutanoate, where it has been shown to have a broad substrate specificity (Drevland et al., J. Bacteriol. 189:4391-4400 (2007)). This enzyme activity was also detected in Clostridium tetanomorphum, Morganella morganii, Citrobacter amalonaticus where it is thought to participate in glutamate degradation (Kato and Asano Arch. Microbiol. 168:457-463 (1997)). The M. jannaschii protein sequence does not bear significant homology to genes in these organisms. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 37 below.

TABLE 37 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism leuD 3122345 Q58673.1 Methanocaldococcus jannaschii

The enzyme OHED hydratase (FIG. 4, Step B) participates in 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid degradation, where it converts 2-oxo-hept-4-ene-1,7-dioate (OHED) to 2-oxo-4-hydroxy-hepta-1,7-dioate (HODH) using magnesium as a cofactor (Burks et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 120 (1998). OHED hydratase enzymes have been identified and characterized in E. coli C (Izumi et al., J. Mol. Biol. 370:899-911 (2007); Roper et al., Gene 156:47-51 (1995)) and E. coli W (Prieto et al., J. Bacteriol. 178:111-120 (1996)). Sequence comparison reveals homologs in a range of bacteria, plants and animals. Enzymes with highly similar sequences are contained in Klebsiella pneumonia (91% identity, evalue=2e-138) and Salmonella enterica (91% identity, evalue=4e-138), among others. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 38 below.

TABLE 38 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism hpcG 556840 CAA57202.1 Escherichia coli C hpaH757830 CAA86044.1 Escherichia coli W hpaH 150958100 ABR80130.1 Klebsiella pneumoniae Sari_01896 160865156 ABX21779.1 Salmonella enterica

Dehydration of 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA (FIG. 2, Step L and FIG. 4, Step G) is catalyzed by an enzyme with enoyl-CoA hydratase activity. 3-Hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydratase (EC 4.2.1.55), also called crotonase, is an enoyl-CoA hydratase that dehydrates 3-hydroxyisobutyryl-CoA to form crotonyl-CoA (FIG. 3, step 2). Crotonase enzymes are required for n-butanol formation in some organisms, particularly Clostridial species, and also comprise one step of the 3-hydroxypropionate/4-hydroxybutyrate cycle in thermoacidophilic Archaea of the genera Sulfolobus, Acidianus, and Metallosphaera. Exemplary genes encoding crotonase enzymes can be found in C. acetobutylicum (Atsumi et al., Metab. Eng. 10:305-211 (2008); Boynton et al., J. Bacteriol. 178:3015-3024 (1996)), C. kluyveri (Hillmer and Gottschalk, FEBS Lett. 21:351-354 (1972)), and Metallosphaera sedula (Berg et al., Science 318:1782-1786 (2007)) though the sequence of the latter gene is not known. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 39 below.

TABLE 39 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism crt 15895969 NP_349318.1 Clostridium acetobutylicum crt1 153953091 YP_001393856.1 Clostridium kluyveri

Additional enoyl-CoA hydratases (EC 4.2.1.17) catalyze the dehydration of a range of 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA substrates (Agnihotri and Liu, Bioorg. Med. Chem. 11:9-20 (2003); Conrad et al., J. Bacteriol. 118:103-111 (1974); Roberts et al., Arch. Microbiol. 117:99-108 (1978)). The enoyl-CoA hydratase of Pseudomonas putida, encoded by ech, catalyzes the conversion of 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA to crotonyl-CoA (Roberts et al., supra). Additional enoyl-CoA hydratase enzymes are phaA and phaB, of P. putida, and paaA and paaB from P. fluorescens (Olivera et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S.A. 95:6419-6424 (1998)). The gene product of pimF in Rhodopseudomonas palustris is predicted to encode an enoyl-CoA hydratase that participates in pimeloyl-CoA degradation (Harrison and Harwood, Microbiology 151:727-736 (2005)). Lastly, a number of Escherichia coli genes have been shown to demonstrate enoyl-CoA hydratase functionality including maoC (Park and Lee, Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 113-116:335-346 (2004)), paaF (Ismail et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 270:3047-3054 (2003); Park and Lee, supra; Park and Yup, Biotechnol. Bioeg 86:681-686 (2004)) and paaG (Ismail et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 270:3047-3054 (2003); Park and Lee, supra; Park and Yup, Biotechnol. Bioeg 86:681-686 (2004)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 40 below.

TABLE 40 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism ech 26990073 NP_745498.1 Pseudomonas putida paaA 26990002 NP_745427.1 Pseudomonas putida paaB 26990001 NP_745426.1 Pseudomonas putida phaA 106636093 ABF82233.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens phaB 106636094 ABF82234.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens pimF 39650635 CAE29158 Rhodopseudomonas palustris maoC 16129348 NP_415905.1 Escherichia coli paaF 16129354 NP_415911.1 Escherichia coli paaG 16129355 NP_415912.1 Escherichia coli

Alternatively, the E. coli gene products of fadA and fadB encode a multienzyme complex involved in fatty acid oxidation that exhibits enoyl-CoA hydratase activity (Nakahigashi and Inokuchi, Nucleic Acids Res. 18:4937 (1990); Yang, S. Y. J. Bacteriol. 173:7405-7406 (1991); Yang et al., Biochemistry 30:6788-6795 (1991)). Knocking out a negative regulator encoded by fadR can be utilized to activate the fadB gene product (Sato et al., J. Biosci. Bioeng. 103:38-44 (2007)). The fadI and fadJ genes encode similar functions and are naturally expressed under anaerobic conditions (Campbell et al., Mol. Microbiol. 47:793-805 (2003)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 41 below.

TABLE 41 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism fadA 49176430 YP_026272.1 Escherichia coli fadB 16131692 NP_418288.1 Escherichia coli fadI 16130275 NP_416844.1 Escherichia coli fadJ 16130274 NP_416843.1 Escherichia coli fadR 16129150 NP_415705.1 Escherichia coli

An enzyme in the ammonia-lyase family is required to deaminate 3-amino-4-hexenedioate (FIG. 2, Steps G and S), 2-aminoadipate (FIG. 5, Step C) and 3-aminoadipate (FIG. 5, Step H). Enzymes catalyzing this exact transformation has not been identified. However the three substrates bear structural similarity to aspartate, the native substrate of aspartase (EC 4.3.1.1.). Aspartase is a widespread enzyme in microorganisms, and has been characterized extensively (Wakil et al., J. Biol. Chem. 207:631-638 (1954)). The E. coli enzyme has been shown to react with a variety of alternate substrates including aspartatephenylmethylester, asparagine, benzyl-aspartate and malate (Ma et al., Ann N.Y. Acad Sci. 672:60-65 (1992)). In addition, directed evolution was been employed on this enzyme to alter substrate specificity (Asano et al., Biomol. Eng. 22:95-101 (2005)). The crystal structure of the E. coli aspartase, encoded by aspA, has been solved (Shi et al., Biochemistry 36:9136-9144 (1997)). Enzymes with aspartase functionality have also been characterized in Haemophilus influenzae (Sjostrom et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1324:182-190 (1997)), Pseudomonas fluorescens (Takagi and Kisumi, J. Bacteriol. 161:1-6 (1985)), Bacillus subtilis (Sjostrom et al., supra) and Serratia marcescens (Takagi and Kisumi supra). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 42 below.

TABLE 42 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism aspA 90111690 NP_418562 Escherichia coli aspA 1168534 P44324.1 Haemophilus influenzae aspA 114273 P07346.1 Pseudomonas fluorescens ansB 251757243 P26899.1 Bacillus subtilis aspA 416661 P33109.1 Serratia marcescens

Another deaminase enzyme is 3-methylaspartase (EC 4.3.1.2). This enzyme, also known as beta-methylaspartase and 3-methylaspartate ammonia-lyase, naturally catalyzes the deamination of threo-3-methylasparatate to mesaconate. The 3-methylaspartase from Clostridium tetanomorphum has been cloned, functionally expressed in E. coli, and crystallized (Asuncion et al., Acta Crystallogr. D. Biol Crystallogr. 57:731-733 (2001); Asuncion et al., J. Biol. Chem. 277:8306-8311 (2002); Botting et al. Biochemistry 27:2953-2955 (1988); Goda et al., Biochemistry 31:10747-10756 (1992)). In Citrobacter amalonaticus, this enzyme is encoded by BAA28709 (Kato and Asano, Arch. Microbiol. 168:457-463 (1997)). 3-methylaspartase has also been crystallized from E. coli YG1002 (Asano and Kato, FEBS Microbiol. Lett. 118:255-258 (1994)) although the protein sequence is not listed in public databases such as GenBank. Sequence homology can be used to identify additional genes, including CTC_02563 in C. tetani and ECs0761 in Escherichia coli O157:H7. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 43 below.

TABLE 43 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism mal 259429 AAB24070.1 Clostridium tetanomorphum BAA28709 3184397 BAA28709.1 Citrobacter amalonaticus CTC_02563 28212141 NP_783085.1 Clostridium tetani ECs0761 13360220 BAB34184.1 Escherichia coli O157:H7

In FIG. 2 Step J, muconolactone is converted to muconate by muconate cycloisomerase. However, muconate cycloisomerase usually results in the formation of cis,cis-muconate, which may be difficult for the subsequent Diels-Alder chemistry. The cis, trans- or trans,trans-isomers are preferred. Therefore, the addition of a cis, trans isomerase may help to improve the yield of terepthalic acid. Enzymes for similar isomeric conversions include maleate cis,trans-isomerase (EC 5.2.1.1), maleylacetone cis-trans-isomerase (EC 5.2.1.2), and cis,trans-isomerase of unsaturated fatty acids (Cti).

Maleate cis, trans-isomerase (EC 5.2.1.1) catalyzes the conversion of maleic acid in cis formation to fumarate in trans formation (Scher and Jakoby, J. Biol. Chem. 244:1878-1882 (1969)). The Alcalidgenes faecalis maiA gene product has been cloned and characterized (Hatakeyeama et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 239:74-79 (1997)). Other maleate cis,trans-isomerases are available in Serratia marcescens (Hatakeyama et al., Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem. 64:1477-1485 (2000)), Ralstonia eutropha and Geobacillus stearothermophilus. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 44 below.

TABLE 44 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism maiA 2575787 BAA23002 Alcaligenes faecalis maiA 113866948 YP_725437 Ralstonia eutropha H16 maiA 4760466 BAA77296 Geobacillus stearothermophilus maiA 8570038 BAA96747.1 Serratia marcescens

Maleylacetone cis,trans-isomerase (EC 5.2.1.2) catalyzes the conversion of 4-maleyl-acetoacetate to 4-fumaryl-acetyacetate, a cis to trans conversion. This enzyme is encoded by maiA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Fernandez-Canon and Penalva, J. Biol. Chem. 273:329-337 (1998)) and Vibrio cholera (Seltzer, S., J. Biol. Chem. 248:215-222 (1973)). A similar enzyme was identified by sequence homology in E. coli O157. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 45 below.

TABLE 45 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism maiA 15597203 NP_250697 Pseudomonas aeruginosa maiA 15641359 NP_230991 Vibrio cholerae maiA 189355347 EDU73766 Escherichia coli O157

The cti gene product catalyzes the conversion of cis-unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) to trans-UFA. The enzyme has been characterized in P. putida (Junker and Ramos, J. Bacteriol. 181:5693-5700 (1999)). Similar enzymes are found in Shewanella sp. MR-4 and Vibrio cholerae. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 46 below.

TABLE 46 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism ct i5257178 AAD41252 Pseudomonas putida cti 113968844 YP_732637 Shewanella sp. MR-4 cti 229506276 ZP_04395785 Vibrio cholerae

The endocyclic migration of the double bond in the structure of β-ketoadipate-enol-lactone to form muconolactone (FIG. 2, Step I) is catalyzed by muconolactone isomerase (EC 5.3.3.4). Muconolactone isomerase also participates in the catechol branch of the β-ketoadipate pathway to degrade aromatic compounds, at the reverse direction of Step G. Muconolactone isomerase is encoded by the catC gene. The Pseudomonas putida muconolactone isomerase was purified and partial amino acid sequences of cyanogen bromide fragments were determined (Meagher, R. B., Biochim. Biophys. Acta 494:33-47 (1997)). A DNA fragment carrying the catBCDE genes from Acinetobacter calcoaceticus was isolated by complementing P. putida mutants and the complemented activities were expressed constitutively in the recombinant P. putida strains (Shanley et, al., J. Bacteriol. 165:557-563 (1986). The A. calcoaceticus catBCDE genes were also expressed at high levels in Escherichia coli under the control of a lac promoter (Shanley et al., supra). The aniline-assimilating bacterium Rhodococcus sp. AN-22 CatC was purified to homogeneity and characterized as a homo-octamer with a molecular mass of 100 kDa (Matsumura et al., Biochem. J. 393:219-226 (2006)). The crystal structure of P. putida muconolactone isomerase was solved (Kattie et al., J. Mol. Biol. 205:557-571 (1989)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 47 below.

TABLE 47 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism Q3LHT1 122612792 catC Rhodococcus sp. AN-22 Q43932 5915883 catC Acinetobacter calcoaceticus Q9EV41 75464174 catC Ralstonia eutropha P00948 5921199 catC Pseudomonas putida Q9Z9Y5 75475019 catC Frateuria species ANA-18

Lysine 2,3-aminomutase (EC 5.4.3.2) converts lysine to (3S)-3,6-diaminohexanoate (FIG. 5, Step E), shifting an amine group from the 2- to the 3-position. The enzyme is found in bacteria that ferment lysine to acetate and butyrate, including as Fusobacterium nuleatum (kamA) (Barker et al., J. Bacteriol. 152:201-207 (1982)) and Clostridium subterminale (kamA) (Chirpich et al., J. Biol. Chem. 245:1778-1789 (1970)). The enzyme from Clostridium subterminale has been crystallized (Lepore et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S.A. 102:13819-13824 (2005)). An enzyme encoding this function is also encoded by yodO in Bacillus subtilus (Chen et al., Biochem. J. 348 Pt 3:539-549 (2000)). The enzyme utilizes pyridoxal 5′-phosphate as a cofactor, requires activation by S-Adenosylmethoionine, and is stereoselective, reacting with the only with L-lysine. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 48 below.

TABLE 48 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism yodO 4033499 O34676.1 Bacillus subtilus kamA 75423266 Q9XBQ8.1 Clostridium subterminale kamA 81485301 Q8RHX4 Fusobacterium nuleatum subsp. nuleatum

In Step H of FIG. 2, the ring opening reaction of muconolactone to form muconate is catalyzed by muconate cycloisomerase (EC 5.5.1.1). Muconate cycloisomerase naturally converts cis,cis-muconate to muconolactone in the catechol branch of the β-ketoadipate pathway to degrade aromatic compounds. This enzyme has not been shown to react with the trans,trans isomer. The muconate cycloisomerase reaction is reversible and is encoded by the catB gene. The Pseudomonas putida catB gene was cloned and sequenced (Aldrich et al., Gene 52:185-195 (1987)), the catB gene product was studied (Neidhart et al., Nature 347:692-694 (1990)) and its crystal structures were resolved (Helin et al., J. Mol. Biol. 254:918-941 (1995)). A DNA fragment carrying the catBCDE genes from Acinetobacter calcoaceticus was isolated by complementing P. putida mutants and the complemented activities were expressed constitutively in the recombinant P. putida strains (Shanley et al., J. Bacteriol. 165:557-563 (1986)). The A. calcoaceticus catBCDE genes were also expressed at high levels in Escherichia coli under the control of a lac promoter (Shanley et al., supra). The Rhodococcus sp. AN-22 CatB was purified to homogeneity and characterized as a monomer with a molecular mass of 44 kDa. The enzyme was activated by Mn²⁺, Co²⁺ and Mg²⁺ (Matsumura et al., Biochem. J. 393:219-226 (2006)). Muconate cycloisomerases from other species, such as Rhodococcus rhodochrous N75, Frateuria species ANA-18, and Trichosporon cutaneum were also purified and studied (Cha and Bruce, FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 224:29-34 2003); Mazur et al., Biochemistry 33:1961-1970 (1994); Murakami et al., Biosci Biotechnol. Biochem. 62:1129-1133 (1998)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 49 below.

TABLE 49 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism catB P08310 115713 Pseudomonas putida catB Q43931 51704317 Acinetobacter calcoaceticus catB Q3LHT2 122612793 Rhodococcus sp. AN-22 catB Q9Z9Y1 75424020 Frateuria species ANA-18 catB P46057 1170967 Trichosporon cutaneum

The conversion of beta-ketoadipyl-CoA to beta-ketoadipate (FIG. 2, Step B) and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA to 2,3-dehydroadipate (FIG. 2, Step M and FIG. 4, Step H) can be catalyzed by a CoA acid-thiol ligase or CoA synthetase in the 6.2.1 family of enzymes. Enzymes catalyzing these exact transformations have not been characterized to date; however, several enzymes with broad substrate specificities have been described in the literature. ADP-forming acetyl-CoA synthetase (ACD, EC 6.2.1.13) is an enzyme that couples the conversion of acyl-CoA esters to their corresponding acids with the concomitant synthesis of ATP. ACD I from Archaeoglobus fulgidus, encoded by AF1211, was shown to operate on a variety of linear and branched-chain substrates including isobutyrate, isopentanoate, and fumarate (Musfeldt and Schonheit, J. Bacteriol. 184:636-644 (2002)). A second reversible ACD in Archaeoglobus fulgidus, encoded by AF1983, was also shown to have a broad substrate range with high activity on cyclic compounds phenylacetate and indoleacetate (Musfeldt and Shonheit, supra). The enzyme from Haloarcula marismortui (annotated as a succinyl-CoA synthetase) accepts propionate, butyrate, and branched-chain acids (isovalerate and isobutyrate) as substrates, and was shown to operate in the forward and reverse directions (Brasen and Schonheit, Arch. Microbiol. 182:277-287 (2004)). The ACD encoded by PAE3250 from hyperthermophilic crenarchaeon Pyrobaculum aerophilum showed the broadest substrate range of all characterized ACDs, reacting with acetyl-CoA, isobutyryl-CoA (preferred substrate) and phenylacetyl-CoA (Brasen and Schonheit, supra). Directed evolution or engineering can be used to modify this enzyme to operate at the physiological temperature of the host organism. The enzymes from A. fulgidus, H. marismortui and P. aerophilum have all been cloned, functionally expressed, and characterized in E. coli (Brasen and Shonheit, supra; Musfeldt and Schonheit, supra). An additional enzyme is encoded by sucCD in E. coli, which naturally catalyzes the formation of succinyl-CoA from succinate with the concomitant consumption of one ATP, a reaction which is reversible in vivo (Buck et al., Biochemistry 24:6245-6252 (1985)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 50 below.

TABLE 50 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism AF1211 11498810 NP_070039.1 Archaeoglobus fulgidus DSM 4304 AF1983 11499565 NP_070807.1 Archaeoglobus fulgidus DSM 4304 scs 55377722 YP_135572.1 Haloarcula marismortui PAE3250 18313937 NP_560604.1 Pyrobaculum aerophilum str. IM2 sucC 16128703 NP_415256.1 Escherichia coli sucD 1786949 AAC73823.1 Escherichia coli

Another enzyme for this step is 6-carboxyhexanoate-CoA ligase, also known as pimeloyl-CoA ligase (EC 6.2.1.14), which naturally activates pimelate to pimeloyl-CoA during biotin biosynthesis in gram-positive bacteria. The enzyme from Pseudomonas mendocina, cloned into E. coli, was shown to accept the alternate substrates hexanedioate and nonanedioate (Binieda et al, Biochem. J. 340 Pt 3:793-801 (1999)). Other enzymes are found in Bacillus subtilis (Bower et al., J. Bacteriol. 178:4122-4130 (1996)) and Lysinibacillus sphaericus (formerly Bacillus sphaericus) (Ploux et al., Biochem. J. 287 Pt 3:685-690 (1992)). Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 51 below.

TABLE 51 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism pauA 15596214 NP_249708.1 Pseudomonas mendocina bioW 50812281 NP_390902.2 Bacillus subtilis bioW 115012 P22822.1 Lysinibacillus sphaericus

Additional CoA-ligases include the rat dicarboxylate-CoA ligase for which the sequence is yet uncharacterized (Vamecq et al., Biochem. J. 230:683-693 (1985)), either of the two characterized phenylacetate-CoA ligases from P. chrysogenum (Lamas-Maceiras et al., Biochem. J. 395:147-155 (2006); Wang et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 360:453-458 (2007)) and the phenylacetate-CoA ligase from Pseudomonas putida (Martinez-Blanco et al., J. Biol. Chem. 265:7084-7090 (1990)). Acetoacetyl-CoA synthetases from Mus musculus (Hasegawa et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1779:414-419 (2008)) and Homo sapiens (Ohgami et al., Biochem. Pharmacol. 65:989-994 (2003)) naturally catalyze the ATP-dependant conversion of acetoacetate into acetoacetyl-CoA. Genbank information related to these genes is summarized in Table 52 below.

TABLE 52 Gene GI # Accession No. Organism phl 77019264 CAJ15517.1 Penicillium chrysogenum phlB 152002983 ABS19624.1 Penicillium chrysogenum paaF 22711873 AAC24333.2 Pseudomonas putida AACS 21313520 NP_084486.1 Mus musculus AACS 31982927 NP_076417.2 Homo sapiens

In some embodiments, the present invention provides a semi-synthetic method for synthesizing terephthalate (PTA) that includes preparing muconic acid by culturing the above-described organisms, reacting the resultant muconic acid with acetylene to form a cyclohexadiene adduct (P1, FIG. 1), and oxidizing the cyclohexadiene adduct to form PTA. Semi-synthetic methods combine the biosynthetic preparation of advanced intermediates with conventional organic chemical reactions.

While the culturing of muconic acid is discussed further below, the Diels-Alder reaction conditions are detailed here. Diels-Alder reactions are widespread in the chemical industry and are known to those skilled in the art (Carruthers, W., Some Modern Methods of Organic Synthesis, Cambridge University Press (1986); Norton, J., Chem. Review 31:319-523 (1942); Sauer, J., Angewandte Chemie 6:16-33 (1967)). This class of pericyclic reactions is well-studied for its ability to generate cyclic compounds at low energetic cost. Diels-Alder reactions are thus an attractive and low-cost way of making a variety of pharmaceuticals and natural products.

In a Diels-Alder reaction, a conjugated diene or heterodiene reacts with an alkene, alkyne, or other unsaturated functional group, known as a dienophile, to form a six-membered ring. One aspect of the Diels-Alder reaction is that the two components usually have complementary electronic character, as determined by the energies of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of the diene and dienophile (Carruthers, W., Some Modern Methods of Organic Synthesis, Cambridge University Press (1986). In normal mode, the diene is electron-rich and the dienophile is electron-poor, although this is not always the case. The method of the present invention provides the opposite electronic configuration with an electron poor diene and a relatively electron rich dienophile, in what is termed an inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reaction. The main physical constraint for this type of reaction is that the conjugated diene must be able to adopt a cisoid conformation for the reaction to proceed. A wide variety of substituted conjugated dienes and dienophiles are able to undergo this chemistry.

In the disclosed reaction of FIG. 1, muconate is the conjugated diene, and is beneficially in the trans,trans or cis,trans isomeric configuration for the reaction to proceed. The cis, cis isomer of muconate, prevalent in biological systems as a degradation product of catechol, is unlikely to adopt the required cisoid conformation due to steric hindrance of the carboxylic acid groups. The trans,trans isomer of muconate (shown in FIG. 1) is able to react in Diels-Alder reactions with a variety of dienes (Deno, N. C., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 72:4057-4059 (1950); Sauer, J., Angewandte Chemie 6:16-33 (1967)).

Acetylene serves as the dienophile in the production of PTA. Acetylene and substituted acetylene derivatives are well-known dienophiles ((Carruthers, W., Some Modern Methods of Organic Synthesis, Cambridge University Press (1986); U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,209, Clement, R. A.; Dai et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129:645-657 (2007)). The addition of electron-withdrawing substituents increases reactivity in normal mode Diels Alder reactions; likewise, in the inverse electron demand, electron donating groups are employed to increase reactivity. At elevated temperatures, unsubstituted acetylene has been shown to react with butadiene and other substituted linear and cyclic dienes (U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,209, Clement, R. A.; Norton, J., Chem. Review 31:319-523 (1942); Vijaya et al., J. Mol. Struct. 589-590:291-299 (2002)).

Increased temperature can be used to perform the Diels-Alder reaction in FIG. 1. For example, the Diels-Alder reaction of acetylene with 1,3-butadiene to form 1,4-cyclohexadiene is performed in the range of 80-300° C. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,209, Clement, R. A. supra).

Other reaction conditions that have been shown to enhance the rate of Diels-Alder reactions include elevated pressure, the addition of a Lewis acid, and stoichiometric excess of acetylene. Elevated pressure up to 1000 atmospheres was shown to enhance the rate of 1,4-cyclohexadiene formation from butadiene and acetylene (U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,209, Clement, R. A.). Catalytic amounts of Lewis acids can also improve reaction rate (Nicolaou et al., Angewandte Chemie 41:1668-1698 (2002)). Some suitable Lewis acids include magnesium halides such as magnesium chloride, magnesium bromide or magnesium iodide or zinc halides such as zinc chloride, zinc bromide or zinc iodide. Stoichiometric excess of acetylene will aid in reducing formation of homopolymerization byproducts.

Oxidation of the Diels-Alder product, cyclohexa-2,5-diene-1,4-dicarboxylate (P1), to PTA can be accomplished in the presence or absence of catalyst under mild reaction conditions. The driving force for P1 oxidation is the formation of the aromatic ring of PTA. Precedence for the conversion of P1 to PTA in the absence of catalyst is the conversion of 1,4-cyclohexadiene to benzene in air (U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,209, Clement, R. A.). 1,4-Cyclohexadiene is also converted to benzene by catalysis, for example using transition metal complexes such as bis(arene)molybdenum(0) and bis(arene)chromium(0) (Fochi, G., Organometallics 7:225-2256 (1988)) or electroactive binuclear rhodium complexes (Smith and Gray, Catalysis Letters 6:195-199 (1990)).

In some embodiments, the method for synthesizing PTA includes isolating muconic acid from the culture broth prior to reacting with acetylene in the Diels-Alder reaction. This is particularly helpful since the Diels-Alder reaction, is frequently done in the absence of a solvent, especially under thermal conditions. Isolation of muconic acid can involve various filtration and centrifugation techniques. Cells of the culture and other insoluble materials can be filtered via ultrafiltration and certain salts can be removed by nanofiltration. Because muconic acid is a diacid, standard extraction techniques can be employed that involve adjusting the pH. After removal of substantially all solids and salts, the muconic acid can be separated from water by removal of water with heating in vacuo, or by extraction at low pH. For example, following the addition of sulfuric acid or phosphoric acid to the fermentation broth in sufficient amounts (pH 3 or lower), the free carboxylate acid form of muconic acid precipitates out of solution (U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,338). In this form, muconic acid is readily separated from the aqueous solution by filtration or other conventional means.

In some embodiments, the muconic acid need not be isolated. Instead, the Diels-Alder reaction between muconic acid and acetylene can be performed in the culture broth. In such a case, the culture broth can be optionally filtered prior to adding acetylene.

The non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention can be produced by introducing expressible nucleic acids encoding one or more of the enzymes or proteins participating in one or more muconate biosynthetic pathways. Depending on the host microbial organism chosen for biosynthesis, nucleic acids for some or all of a particular muconate biosynthetic pathway can be expressed. For example, if a chosen host is deficient in one or more enzymes or proteins for a desired biosynthetic pathway, then expressible nucleic acids for the deficient enzyme(s) or protein(s) are introduced into the host for subsequent exogenous expression. Alternatively, if the chosen host exhibits endogenous expression of some pathway genes, but is deficient in others, then an encoding nucleic acid is needed for the deficient enzyme(s) or protein(s) to achieve muconate biosynthesis. Thus, a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention can be produced by introducing exogenous enzyme or protein activities to obtain a desired biosynthetic pathway or a desired biosynthetic pathway can be obtained by introducing one or more exogenous enzyme or protein activities that, together with one or more endogenous enzymes or proteins, produces a desired product such as muconate.

Depending on the muconate biosynthetic pathway constituents of a selected host microbial organism, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention will include at least one exogenously expressed muconate pathway-encoding nucleic acid and up to all encoding nucleic acids for one or more muconate biosynthetic pathways. For example, muconate biosynthesis can be established in a host deficient in a pathway enzyme or protein through exogenous expression of the corresponding encoding nucleic acid. In a host deficient in all enzymes or proteins of a muconate pathway, exogenous expression of all enzyme or proteins in the pathway can be included, although it is understood that all enzymes or proteins of a pathway can be expressed even if the host contains at least one of the pathway enzymes or proteins. For example, exogenous expression of all enzymes or proteins in a pathway for production of muconate can be included, such as those shown in FIGS. 2-5.

Given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art will understand that the number of encoding nucleic acids to introduce in an expressible form will, at least, parallel the muconate pathway deficiencies of the selected host microbial organism. Therefore, a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention can have one, two, three, four, six, etc. up to all nucleic acids encoding the enzymes or proteins constituting a muconate biosynthetic pathway disclosed herein. In some embodiments, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms also can include other genetic modifications that facilitate or optimize muconate biosynthesis or that confer other useful functions onto the host microbial organism. One such other functionality can include, for example, augmentation of the synthesis of one or more of the muconate pathway precursors such as succinyl-CoA.

Generally, a host microbial organism is selected such that it produces the precursor of a muconate pathway, either as a naturally produced molecule or as an engineered product that either provides de novo production of a desired precursor or increased production of a precursor naturally produced by the host microbial organism. For example, succinyl-CoA is produced naturally in a host organism such as E. coli. A host organism can be engineered to increase production of a precursor, as disclosed herein. In addition, a microbial organism that has been engineered to produce a desired precursor can be used as a host organism and further engineered to express enzymes or proteins of a muconate pathway.

In some embodiments, a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention is generated from a host that contains the enzymatic capability to synthesize muconate. In this specific embodiment it can be useful to increase the synthesis or accumulation of a muconate pathway product to, for example, drive muconate pathway reactions toward muconate production. Increased synthesis or accumulation can be accomplished by, for example, overexpression of nucleic acids encoding one or more of the above-described muconate pathway enzymes or proteins. Overexpression of the enzyme or enzymes and/or protein or proteins of the muconate pathway can occur, for example, through exogenous expression of the endogenous gene or genes, or through exogenous expression of the heterologous gene or genes. Therefore, naturally occurring organisms can be readily generated to be non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention, for example, producing muconate, through overexpression of one, two, three, four, five, six, that is, up to all nucleic acids encoding muconate biosynthetic pathway enzymes or proteins. In addition, a non-naturally occurring organism can be generated by mutagenesis of an endogenous gene that results in an increase in activity of an enzyme in the muconate biosynthetic pathway.

In particularly useful embodiments, exogenous expression of the encoding nucleic acids is employed. Exogenous expression confers the ability to custom tailor the expression and/or regulatory elements to the host and application to achieve a desired expression level that is controlled by the user. However, endogenous expression also can be utilized in other embodiments such as by removing a negative regulatory effector or induction of the gene's promoter when linked to an inducible promoter or other regulatory element. Thus, an endogenous gene having a naturally occurring inducible promoter can be up-regulated by providing the appropriate inducing agent, or the regulatory region of an endogenous gene can be engineered to incorporate an inducible regulatory element, thereby allowing the regulation of increased expression of an endogenous gene at a desired time. Similarly, an inducible promoter can be included as a regulatory element for an exogenous gene introduced into a non-naturally occurring microbial organism.

It is understood that, in methods of the invention, any of the one or more exogenous nucleic acids can be introduced into a microbial organism to produce a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention. The nucleic acids can be introduced so as to confer, for example, a muconate biosynthetic pathway onto the microbial organism. Alternatively, encoding nucleic acids can be introduced to produce an intermediate microbial organism having the biosynthetic capability to catalyze some of the required reactions to confer muconate biosynthetic capability. For example, a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate biosynthetic pathway can comprise at least two exogenous nucleic acids encoding desired enzymes or proteins. Thus, it is understood that any combination of two or more enzymes or proteins of a biosynthetic pathway can be included in a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention. Similarly, it is understood that any combination of three or more enzymes or proteins of a biosynthetic pathway can be included in a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention and so forth, as desired, so long as the combination of enzymes and/or proteins of the desired biosynthetic pathway results in production of the corresponding desired product. Similarly, any combination of four, or more enzymes or proteins of a biosynthetic pathway as disclosed herein can be included in a non-naturally occurring microbial organism of the invention, as desired, so long as the combination of enzymes and/or proteins of the desired biosynthetic pathway results in production of the corresponding desired product.

In addition to the biosynthesis of muconate as described herein, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms and methods of the invention also can be utilized in various combinations with each other and with other microbial organisms and methods well known in the art to achieve product biosynthesis by other routes. For example, one alternative to produce muconate other than use of the muconate producers is through addition of another microbial organism capable of converting a muconate pathway intermediate to muconate. One such procedure includes, for example, the fermentation of a microbial organism that produces a muconate pathway intermediate. The muconate pathway intermediate can then be used as a substrate for a second microbial organism that converts the muconate pathway intermediate to muconate. The muconate pathway intermediate can be added directly to another culture of the second organism or the original culture of the muconate pathway intermediate producers can be depleted of these microbial organisms by, for example, cell separation, and then subsequent addition of the second organism to the fermentation broth can be utilized to produce the final product without intermediate purification steps.

In other embodiments, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms and methods of the invention can be assembled in a wide variety of subpathways to achieve biosynthesis of, for example, muconate. In these embodiments, biosynthetic pathways for a desired product of the invention can be segregated into different microbial organisms, and the different microbial organisms can be co-cultured to produce the final product. In such a biosynthetic scheme, the product of one microbial organism is the substrate for a second microbial organism until the final product is synthesized. For example, the biosynthesis of muconate can be accomplished by constructing a microbial organism that contains biosynthetic pathways for conversion of one pathway intermediate to another pathway intermediate or the product. Alternatively, muconate also can be biosynthetically produced from microbial organisms through co-culture or co-fermentation using two organisms in the same vessel, where the first microbial organism produces a muconate intermediate and the second microbial organism converts the intermediate to muconate.

Given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art will understand that a wide variety of combinations and permutations exist for the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms and methods of the invention together with other microbial organisms, with the co-culture of other non-naturally occurring microbial organisms having subpathways and with combinations of other chemical and/or biochemical procedures well known in the art to produce muconate.

Sources of encoding nucleic acids for a muconate pathway enzyme or protein can include, for example, any species where the encoded gene product is capable of catalyzing the referenced reaction. Such species include both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms including, but not limited to, bacteria, including archaea and eubacteria, and eukaryotes, including yeast, plant, insect, animal, and mammal, including human. Exemplary species for such sources include, for example, Escherichia coli, as well as other exemplary species disclosed herein or available as source organisms for corresponding genes. However, with the complete genome sequence available for now more than 550 species (with more than half of these available on public databases such as the NCBI), including 395 microorganism genomes and a variety of yeast, fungi, plant, and mammalian genomes, the identification of genes encoding the requisite muconate biosynthetic activity for one or more genes in related or distant species, including for example, homologues, orthologs, paralogs and nonorthologous gene displacements of known genes, and the interchange of genetic alterations between organisms is routine and well known in the art. Accordingly, the metabolic alterations enabling biosynthesis of muconate described herein with reference to a particular organism such as E. coli can be readily applied to other microorganisms, including prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms alike. Given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art will know that a metabolic alteration exemplified in one organism can be applied equally to other organisms.

In some instances, such as when an alternative muconate biosynthetic pathway exists in an unrelated species, muconate biosynthesis can be conferred onto the host species by, for example, exogenous expression of a paralog or paralogs from the unrelated species that catalyzes a similar, yet non-identical metabolic reaction to replace the referenced reaction. Because certain differences among metabolic networks exist between different organisms, those skilled in the art will understand that the actual gene usage between different organisms may differ. However, given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art also will understand that the teachings and methods of the invention can be applied to all microbial organisms using the cognate metabolic alterations to those exemplified herein to construct a microbial organism in a species of interest that will synthesize muconate.

Host microbial organisms can be selected from, and the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms generated in, for example, bacteria, yeast, fungus or any of a variety of other microorganisms applicable to fermentation processes. Exemplary bacteria include species selected from Escherichia coli, Klebsiella oxytoca, Anaerobiospirillum succiniciproducens, Actinobacillus succinogenes, Mannheimia succiniciproducens, Rhizobium etli, Bacillus subtilis, Corynebacterium glutamicum, Gluconobacter oxydans, Zymomonas mobilis, Lactococcus lactis, Lactobacillus plantarum, Streptomyces coelicolor, Clostridium acetobutylicum, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Pseudomonas putida. Exemplary yeasts or fungi include species selected from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Kluyveromyces lactis, Kluyveromyces marxianus, Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus niger and Pichia pastoris. E. coli is a particularly useful host organisms since it is a well characterized microbial organism suitable for genetic engineering. Other particularly useful host organisms include yeast such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Methods for constructing and testing the expression levels of a non-naturally occurring muconate-producing host can be performed, for example, by recombinant and detection methods well known in the art. Such methods can be found described in, for example, Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, Third Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York (2001); and Ausubel et al., Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, John Wiley and Sons, Baltimore, Md. (1999).

Exogenous nucleic acid sequences involved in a pathway for production of muconate can be introduced stably or transiently into a host cell using techniques well known in the art including, but not limited to, conjugation, electroporation, chemical transformation, transduction, transfection, and ultrasound transformation. For exogenous expression in E. coli or other prokaryotic cells, some nucleic acid sequences in the genes or cDNAs of eukaryotic nucleic acids can encode targeting signals such as an N-terminal mitochondrial or other targeting signal, which can be removed before transformation into prokaryotic host cells, if desired. For example, removal of a mitochondrial leader sequence led to increased expression in E. coli (Hoffmeister et al., J. Biol. Chem. 280:4329-4338 (2005)). For exogenous expression in yeast or other eukaryotic cells, genes can be expressed in the cytosol without the addition of leader sequence, or can be targeted to mitochondrion or other organelles, or targeted for secretion, by the addition of a suitable targeting sequence such as a mitochondrial targeting or secretion signal suitable for the host cells. Thus, it is understood that appropriate modifications to a nucleic acid sequence to remove or include a targeting sequence can be incorporated into an exogenous nucleic acid sequence to impart desirable properties. Furthermore, genes can be subjected to codon optimization with techniques well known in the art to achieve optimized expression of the proteins.

An expression vector or vectors can be constructed to include one or more muconate biosynthetic pathway encoding nucleic acids as exemplified herein operably linked to expression control sequences functional in the host organism. Expression vectors applicable for use in the microbial host organisms of the invention include, for example, plasmids, phage vectors, viral vectors, episomes and artificial chromosomes, including vectors and selection sequences or markers operable for stable integration into a host chromosome. Additionally, the expression vectors can include one or more selectable marker genes and appropriate expression control sequences. Selectable marker genes also can be included that, for example, provide resistance to antibiotics or toxins, complement auxotrophic deficiencies, or supply critical nutrients not in the culture media. Expression control sequences can include constitutive and inducible promoters, transcription enhancers, transcription terminators, and the like which are well known in the art. When two or more exogenous encoding nucleic acids are to be co-expressed, both nucleic acids can be inserted, for example, into a single expression vector or in separate expression vectors. For single vector expression, the encoding nucleic acids can be operationally linked to one common expression control sequence or linked to different expression control sequences, such as one inducible promoter and one constitutive promoter. The transformation of exogenous nucleic acid sequences involved in a metabolic or synthetic pathway can be confirmed using methods well known in the art. Such methods include, for example, nucleic acid analysis such as Northern blots or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of mRNA, or immunoblotting for expression of gene products, or other suitable analytical methods to test the expression of an introduced nucleic acid sequence or its corresponding gene product. It is understood by those skilled in the art that the exogenous nucleic acid is expressed in a sufficient amount to produce the desired product, and it is further understood that expression levels can be optimized to obtain sufficient expression using methods well known in the art and as disclosed herein.

Directed evolution is a powerful approach that involves the introduction of mutations targeted to a specific gene in order to improve and/or alter the properties of an enzyme. Improved and/or altered enzymes can be identified through the development and implementation of sensitive high-throughput screening assays that allow the automated screening of many enzyme variants (e.g., >10⁴). Iterative rounds of mutagenesis and screening typically are performed to afford an enzyme with optimized properties. Computational algorithms that can help to identify areas of the gene for mutagenesis also have been developed and can significantly reduce the number of enzyme variants that need to be generated and screened.

Numerous directed evolution technologies have been developed (for reviews, see Hibbert et al., Biomol. Eng 22:11-19 (2005); Huisman and Lalonde, In Biocatalysis in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries pgs. 717-742 (2007), Patel (ed.), CRC Press; Otten and Quax, Biomol. Eng 22:1-9 (2005).; and Sen et al., Appl Biochem. Biotechnol 143:212-223 (2007)) to be effective at creating diverse variant libraries and these methods have been successfully applied to the improvement of a wide range of properties across many enzyme classes.

Enzyme characteristics that have been improved and/or altered by directed evolution technologies include, for example, selectivity/specificity—for conversion of non-natural substrates; temperature stability—for robust high temperature processing; pH stability—for bioprocessing under lower or higher pH conditions; substrate or product tolerance—so that high product titers can be achieved; binding (K_(m))—broadens substrate binding to include non-natural substrates; inhibition (K_(i))—to remove inhibition by products, substrates, or key intermediates; activity (kcat)—increases enzymatic reaction rates to achieve desired flux; expression levels—increases protein yields and overall pathway flux; oxygen stability—for operation of air sensitive enzymes under aerobic conditions; and anaerobic activity—for operation of an aerobic enzyme in the absence of oxygen.

The following exemplary methods have been developed for the mutagenesis and diversification of genes to target desired properties of specific enzymes. Any of these can be used to alter/optimize activity of a decarboxylase enzyme.

EpPCR (Pritchard et al., J Theor. Biol 234:497-509 (2005)) introduces random point mutations by reducing the fidelity of DNA polymerase in PCR reactions by the addition of Mn²⁺ ions, by biasing dNTP concentrations, or by other conditional variations. The five step cloning process to confine the mutagenesis to the target gene of interest involves: 1) error-prone PCR amplification of the gene of interest; 2) restriction enzyme digestion; 3) gel purification of the desired DNA fragment; 4) ligation into a vector; 5) transformation of the gene variants into a suitable host and screening of the library for improved performance. This method can generate multiple mutations in a single gene simultaneously, which can be useful. A high number of mutants can be generated by EpPCR, so a high-throughput screening assay or a selection method (especially using robotics) is useful to identify those with desirable characteristics.

Error-prone Rolling Circle Amplification (epRCA) (Fujii et al., Nucleic Acids Res 32:e145 (2004); and Fujii et al., Nat. Protoc. 1:2493-2497 (2006)) has many of the same elements as epPCR except a whole circular plasmid is used as the template and random 6-mers with exonuclease resistant thiophosphate linkages on the last 2 nucleotides are used to amplify the plasmid followed by transformation into cells in which the plasmid is re-circularized at tandem repeats. Adjusting the Mn²⁺ concentration can vary the mutation rate somewhat. This technique uses a simple error-prone, single-step method to create a full copy of the plasmid with 3-4 mutations/kbp. No restriction enzyme digestion or specific primers are required. Additionally, this method is typically available as a kit.

DNA or Family Shuffling (Stemmer, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:10747-10751 (1994); and Stemmer, Nature 370:389-391 (1994)) typically involves digestion of two or more variant genes with nucleases such as Dnase I or EndoV to generate a pool of random fragments that are reassembled by cycles of annealing and extension in the presence of DNA polymerase to create a library of chimeric genes. Fragments prime each other and recombination occurs when one copy primes another copy (template switch). This method can be used with >1 kbp DNA sequences. In addition to mutational recombinants created by fragment reassembly, this method introduces point mutations in the extension steps at a rate similar to error-prone PCR. The method can be used to remove deleterious, random and neutral mutations that might confer antigenicity.

Staggered Extension (StEP) (Zhao et al., Nat. Biotechnol 16:258-261 (1998)) entails template priming followed by repeated cycles of 2 step PCR with denaturation and very short duration of annealing/extension (as short as 5 sec). Growing fragments anneal to different templates and extend further, which is repeated until full-length sequences are made. Template switching means most resulting fragments have multiple parents. Combinations of low-fidelity polymerases (Taq and Mutazyme) reduce error-prone biases because of opposite mutational spectra.

In Random Priming Recombination (RPR) random sequence primers are used to generate many short DNA fragments complementary to different segments of the template. (Shao et al., Nucleic Acids Res 26:681-683 (1998)) Base misincorporation and mispriming via epPCR give point mutations. Short DNA fragments prime one another based on homology and are recombined and reassembled into full-length by repeated thermocycling. Removal of templates prior to this step assures low parental recombinants. This method, like most others, can be performed over multiple iterations to evolve distinct properties. This technology avoids sequence bias, is independent of gene length, and requires very little parent DNA for the application.

In Heteroduplex Recombination linearized plasmid DNA is used to form heteroduplexes that are repaired by mismatch repair. (Volkov et al, Nucleic Acids Res 27:e18 (1999); and Volkov et al., Methods Enzymol. 328:456-463 (2000)) The mismatch repair step is at least somewhat mutagenic. Heteroduplexes transform more efficiently than linear homoduplexes. This method is suitable for large genes and whole operons.

Random Chimeragenesis on Transient Templates (RACHITT) (Coco et al., Nat. Biotechnol 19:354-359 (2001)) employs Dnase I fragmentation and size fractionation of ssDNA. Homologous fragments are hybridized in the absence of polymerase to a complementary ssDNA scaffold. Any overlapping unhybridized fragment ends are trimmed down by an exonuclease. Gaps between fragments are filled in, and then ligated to give a pool of full-length diverse strands hybridized to the scaffold (that contains U to preclude amplification). The scaffold then is destroyed and is replaced by a new strand complementary to the diverse strand by PCR amplification. The method involves one strand (scaffold) that is from only one parent while the priming fragments derive from other genes; the parent scaffold is selected against. Thus, no reannealing with parental fragments occurs. Overlapping fragments are trimmed with an exonuclease. Otherwise, this is conceptually similar to DNA shuffling and StEP. Therefore, there should be no siblings, few inactives, and no unshuffled parentals. This technique has advantages in that few or no parental genes are created and many more crossovers can result relative to standard DNA shuffling.

Recombined Extension on Truncated templates (RETT) entails template switching of unidirectionally growing strands from primers in the presence of unidirectional ssDNA fragments used as a pool of templates. (Lee et al., J. Molec. Catalysis 26:119-129 (2003)) No DNA endonucleases are used. Unidirectional ssDNA is made by DNA polymerase with random primers or serial deletion with exonuclease. Unidirectional ssDNA are only templates and not primers. Random priming and exonucleases don't introduce sequence bias as true of enzymatic cleavage of DNA shuffling/RACHITT. RETT can be easier to optimize than StEP because it uses normal PCR conditions instead of very short extensions. Recombination occurs as a component of the PCR steps—no direct shuffling. This method can also be more random than StEP due to the absence of pauses.

In Degenerate Oligonucleotide Gene Shuffling (DOGS) degenerate primers are used to control recombination between molecules; (Bergquist and Gibbs, Methods Mol. Biol 352:191-204 (2007); Bergquist et al., Biomol. Eng 22:63-72 (2005); Gibbs et al., Gene 271:13-20 (2001)) this can be used to control the tendency of other methods such as DNA shuffling to regenerate parental genes. This method can be combined with random mutagenesis (epPCR) of selected gene segments. This can be a good method to block the reformation of parental sequences. No endonucleases are needed. By adjusting input concentrations of segments made, one can bias towards a desired backbone. This method allows DNA shuffling from unrelated parents without restriction enzyme digests and allows a choice of random mutagenesis methods.

Incremental Truncation for the Creation of Hybrid Enzymes (ITCHY) creates a combinatorial library with 1 base pair deletions of a gene or gene fragment of interest. (Ostermeier et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96:3562-3567 (1999); and Ostermeier et al., Nat. Biotechnol 17:1205-1209 (1999)) Truncations are introduced in opposite direction on pieces of 2 different genes. These are ligated together and the fusions are cloned. This technique does not require homology between the 2 parental genes. When ITCHY is combined with DNA shuffling, the system is called SCRATCHY (see below). A major advantage of both is no need for homology between parental genes; for example, functional fusions between an E. coli and a human gene were created via ITCHY. When ITCHY libraries are made, all possible crossovers are captured.

Thio-Incremental Truncation for the Creation of Hybrid Enzymes (THIO-ITCHY) is similar to ITCHY except that phosphothioate dNTPs are used to generate truncations. (Lutz et al., Nucleic Acids Res 29:E16 (2001)) Relative to ITCHY, THIO-ITCHY can be easier to optimize, provide more reproducibility, and adjustability.

SCRATCHY combines two methods for recombining genes, ITCHY and DNA shuffling. (Lutz et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98:11248-11253 (2001)) SCRATCHY combines the best features of ITCHY and DNA shuffling. First, ITCHY is used to create a comprehensive set of fusions between fragments of genes in a DNA homology-independent fashion. This artificial family is then subjected to a DNA-shuffling step to augment the number of crossovers. Computational predictions can be used in optimization. SCRATCHY is more effective than DNA shuffling when sequence identity is below 80%.

In Random Drift Mutagenesis (RNDM) mutations made via epPCR followed by screening/selection for those retaining usable activity. (Bergquist et al., Biomol. Eng 22:63-72 (2005)) Then, these are used in DOGS to generate recombinants with fusions between multiple active mutants or between active mutants and some other desirable parent. Designed to promote isolation of neutral mutations; its purpose is to screen for retained catalytic activity whether or not this activity is higher or lower than in the original gene. RNDM is usable in high throughput assays when screening is capable of detecting activity above background. RNDM has been used as a front end to DOGS in generating diversity. The technique imposes a requirement for activity prior to shuffling or other subsequent steps; neutral drift libraries are indicated to result in higher/quicker improvements in activity from smaller libraries. Though published using epPCR, this could be applied to other large-scale mutagenesis methods.

Sequence Saturation Mutagenesis (SeSaM) is a random mutagenesis method that: 1) generates pool of random length fragments using random incorporation of a phosphothioate nucleotide and cleavage; this pool is used as a template to 2) extend in the presence of “universal” bases such as inosine; 3) replication of a inosine-containing complement gives random base incorporation and, consequently, mutagenesis. (Wong et al., Biotechnol J. 3:74-82 (2008); Wong et al., Nucleic Acids Res 32:e26 (2004); and Wong et al., Anal. Biochem. 341:187-189 (2005)) Using this technique it can be possible to generate a large library of mutants within 2-3 days using simple methods. This technique is non-directed in comparison to the mutational bias of DNA polymerases. Differences in this approach makes this technique complementary (or an alternative) to epPCR.

In Synthetic Shuffling, overlapping oligonucleotides are designed to encode “all genetic diversity in targets” and allow a very high diversity for the shuffled progeny. (Ness et al., Nat. Biotechnol 20:1251-1255 (2002)) In this technique, one can design the fragments to be shuffled. This aids in increasing the resulting diversity of the progeny. One can design sequence/codon biases to make more distantly related sequences recombine at rates approaching those observed with more closely related sequences. Additionally, the technique does not require physically possessing the template genes.

Nucleotide Exchange and Excision Technology NexT exploits a combination of dUTP incorporation followed by treatment with uracil DNA glycosylase and then piperidine to perform endpoint DNA fragmentation. (Muller et al., Nucleic Acids Res 33:e117 (2005)) The gene is reassembled using internal PCR primer extension with proofreading polymerase. The sizes for shuffling are directly controllable using varying dUPT::dTTP ratios. This is an end point reaction using simple methods for uracil incorporation and cleavage. Other nucleotide analogs, such as 8-oxo-guanine, can be used with this method. Additionally, the technique works well with very short fragments (86 bp) and has a low error rate. The chemical cleavage of DNA used in this technique results in very few unshuffled clones.

In Sequence Homology-Independent Protein Recombination (SHIPREC) a linker is used to facilitate fusion between two distantly/unrelated genes. Nuclease treatment is used to generate a range of chimeras between the two genes. These fusions result in libraries of single-crossover hybrids. (Sieber et al., Nat. Biotechnol 19:456-460 (2001)) This produces a limited type of shuffling and a separate process is required for mutagenesis. In addition, since no homology is needed this technique can create a library of chimeras with varying fractions of each of the two unrelated parent genes. SHIPREC was tested with a heme-binding domain of a bacterial CP450 fused to N-terminal regions of a mammalian CP450; this produced mammalian activity in a more soluble enzyme.

In Gene Site Saturation Mutagenesis™ (GSSM™) the starting materials are a supercoiled dsDNA plasmid containing an insert and two primers which are degenerate at the desired site of mutations. (Kretz et al., Methods Enzymol. 388:3-11 (2004)) Primers carrying the mutation of interest, anneal to the same sequence on opposite strands of DNA. The mutation is typically in the middle of the primer and flanked on each side by ˜20 nucleotides of correct sequence. The sequence in the primer is NNN or NNK (coding) and MNN (noncoding) (N=all 4, K=G, T, M=A, C). After extension, DpnI is used to digest dam-methylated DNA to eliminate the wild-type template. This technique explores all possible amino acid substitutions at a given locus (i.e., one codon). The technique facilitates the generation of all possible replacements at a single-site with no nonsense codons and results in equal to near-equal representation of most possible alleles. This technique does not require prior knowledge of the structure, mechanism, or domains of the target enzyme. If followed by shuffling or Gene Reassembly, this technology creates a diverse library of recombinants containing all possible combinations of single-site up-mutations. The utility of this technology combination has been demonstrated for the successful evolution of over 50 different enzymes, and also for more than one property in a given enzyme.

Combinatorial Cassette Mutagenesis (CCM) involves the use of short oligonucleotide cassettes to replace limited regions with a large number of possible amino acid sequence alterations. (Reidhaar-Olson et al. Methods Enzymol. 208:564-586 (1991); and Reidhaar-Olson et al. Science 241:53-57 (1988)) Simultaneous substitutions at two or three sites are possible using this technique. Additionally, the method tests a large multiplicity of possible sequence changes at a limited range of sites. This technique has been used to explore the information content of the lambda repressor DNA-binding domain.

Combinatorial Multiple Cassette Mutagenesis (CMCM) is essentially similar to CCM except it is employed as part of a larger program: 1) Use of epPCR at high mutation rate to 2) ID hot spots and hot regions and then 3) extension by CMCM to cover a defined region of protein sequence space. (Reetz et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed Engl. 40:3589-3591 (2001).) As with CCM, this method can test virtually all possible alterations over a target region. If used along with methods to create random mutations and shuffled genes, it provides an excellent means of generating diverse, shuffled proteins. This approach was successful in increasing, by 51-fold, the enantioselectivity of an enzyme.

In the Mutator Strains technique conditional is mutator plasmids allow increases of 20- to 4000-X in random and natural mutation frequency during selection and block accumulation of deleterious mutations when selection is not required. (Selifonova et al., Appl Environ Microbiol 67:3645-3649 (2001)) This technology is based on a plasmid-derived mutD5 gene, which encodes a mutant subunit of DNA polymerase III. This subunit binds to endogenous DNA polymerase III and compromises the proofreading ability of polymerase III in any strain that harbors the plasmid. A broad-spectrum of base substitutions and frameshift mutations occur. In order for effective use, the mutator plasmid should be removed once the desired phenotype is achieved; this is accomplished through a temperature sensitive origin of replication, which allows for plasmid curing at 41° C. It should be noted that mutator strains have been explored for quite some time (e.g., see Low et al., J. Mol. Biol. 260:359-3680 (1996)). In this technique very high spontaneous mutation rates are observed. The conditional property minimizes non-desired background mutations. This technology could be combined with adaptive evolution to enhance mutagenesis rates and more rapidly achieve desired phenotypes.

“Look-Through Mutagenesis (LTM) is a multidimensional mutagenesis method that assesses and optimizes combinatorial mutations of selected amino acids.” (Rajpal et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci U.S.A. 102:8466-8471 (2005)) Rather than saturating each site with all possible amino acid changes, a set of nine is chosen to cover the range of amino acid R-group chemistry. Fewer changes per site allows multiple sites to be subjected to this type of mutagenesis. A >800-fold increase in binding affinity for an antibody from low nanomolar to picomolar has been achieved through this method. This is a rational approach to minimize the number of random combinations and can increase the ability to find improved traits by greatly decreasing the numbers of clones to be screened. This has been applied to antibody engineering, specifically to increase the binding affinity and/or reduce dissociation. The technique can be combined with either screens or selections.

Gene Reassembly is a DNA shuffling method that can be applied to multiple genes at one time or to creating a large library of chimeras (multiple mutations) of a single gene. (Tunable GeneReassembly™ (TGR™) Technology supplied by Verenium Corporation) Typically this technology is used in combination with ultra-high-throughput screening to query the represented sequence space for desired improvements. This technique allows multiple gene recombination independent of homology. The exact number and position of cross-over events can be pre-determined using fragments designed via bioinformatic analysis. This technology leads to a very high level of diversity with virtually no parental gene reformation and a low level of inactive genes. Combined with GSSM™, a large range of mutations can be tested for improved activity. The method allows “blending” and “fine tuning” of DNA shuffling, e.g. codon usage can be optimized.

In Silico Protein Design Automation (PDA) is an optimization algorithm that anchors the structurally defined protein backbone possessing a particular fold, and searches sequence space for amino acid substitutions that can stabilize the fold and overall protein energetics. (Hayes et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci U.S.A. 99:15926-15931 (2002)) This technology uses in silico structure-based entropy predictions in order to search for structural tolerance toward protein amino acid variations. Statistical mechanics is applied to calculate coupling interactions at each position. Structural tolerance toward amino acid substitution is a measure of coupling. Ultimately, this technology is designed to yield desired modifications of protein properties while maintaining the integrity of structural characteristics. The method computationally assesses and allows filtering of a very large number of possible sequence variants (10⁵⁰). The choice of sequence variants to test is related to predictions based on the most favorable thermodynamics. Ostensibly only stability or properties that are linked to stability can be effectively addressed with this technology. The method has been successfully used in some therapeutic proteins, especially in engineering immunoglobulins. In silico predictions avoid testing extraordinarily large numbers of potential variants. Predictions based on existing three-dimensional structures are more likely to succeed than predictions based on hypothetical structures. This technology can readily predict and allow targeted screening of multiple simultaneous mutations, something not possible with purely experimental technologies due to exponential increases in numbers.

Iterative Saturation Mutagenesis (ISM) involves: 1) use knowledge of structure/function to choose a likely site for enzyme improvement; 2) saturation mutagenesis at chosen site using Stratagene QuikChange (or other suitable means); 3) screen/select for desired properties; and 4) with improved clone(s), start over at another site and continue repeating. (Reetz et al., Nat. Protoc. 2:891-903 (2007); and Reetz et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed Engl. 45:7745-7751 (2006)) This is a proven methodology, which assures all possible replacements at a given position are made for screening/selection.

Any of the aforementioned methods for mutagenesis can be used alone or in any combination. Additionally, any one or combination of the directed evolution methods can be used in conjunction with adaptive evolution techniques.

The present invention provides a method for producing muconate that includes culturing a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway. The pathway includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate, under conditions and for a sufficient period of time to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a beta-ketothiolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, a 2-fumarylacetate reductase, a 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, a trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase, a 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, a beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, a muconolactone isomerase, a muconate cycloisomerase, a beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, a 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, a muconate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate reductase, a 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, a cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, a 2-maleylacetate aminoatransferase, a 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, a cis-3-amino-4-hexendioate deaminase, and a muconate cis/trans isomerase.

In some embodiments, the muconate pathway includes, a set of muconate pathway enzymes such as those exemplified in FIG. 2; the set of muconate pathway enzymes are selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase, and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) beta-ketoadipate enol-lactone hydrolase, (4) muconolactone isomerase, (5) muconate cycloisomerase, and (6) muconate cis/trans isomerase;

B) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-maleylacetate reductase, (4) 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase, (5) cis-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase, and (6) muconate cis/trans isomerase;

C) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-maleylacetate reductase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2-maleylacetate aminotransferase and 2-maleylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, (5) cis-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase, and (6) muconate cis/trans isomerase;

D) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) beta-ketoadipyl-CoA dehydrogenase, (3) 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and (5) muconate reductase;

E) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-fumarylacetate reductase, (4) 2-fumarylacetate dehydrogenase, and (5) trans-3-hydroxy-4-hexendioate dehydratase;

F) (1) beta-ketothiolase, (2) an enzyme selected from beta-ketoadipyl-CoA hydrolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and beta-ketoadipyl-CoA ligase, (3) 2-fumarylacetate reductase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2-fumarylacetate aminotransferase and 2-fumarylacetate aminating oxidoreductase, and (5) trans-3-amino-4-hexenoate deaminase.

In some embodiments, the present invention provides a method for producing muconate that includes culturing a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway. The pathway comprising at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate, under conditions and for a sufficient period of time to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes a 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, a 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, a 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, a 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase, a 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group) and a 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.

In some embodiments, the muconate pathway includes, a set of muconate pathway enzymes such as those exemplified in FIG. 3; the set of muconate pathway enzymes are selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, (3) 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase;

B) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), (4) 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase; and

C) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group), (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.

In some embodiments, the present invention provides a method for producing muconate that includes culturing a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway. The pathway includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate, under conditions and for a sufficient period of time to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of an HODH aldolase, an OHED hydratase, an OHED decarboxylase, an HODH formate-lyase, an HODH dehydrogenase, an OHED formate-lyase, an OHED dehydrogenase, a 6-OHE dehydrogenase, a 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase, a 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and a muconate reductase.

In some embodiments, the muconate pathway includes, a set of muconate pathway enzymes such as those exemplified in FIG. 4; the set of muconate pathway enzymes are selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) HODH aldolase, (2) OHED hydratase, (3) OHED decarboxylase, (4) 6-OHE dehydrogenase, and (5) muconate reductase;

B) (1) HODH aldolase, (2) OHED hydratase, (3) an enzyme selected from OHED formate-lyase and OHED dehydrogenase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and (5) muconate reductase; and

C) (1) HODH aldolase, (2) an enzyme selected from HODH formate-lyase and HODH dehydrogenase, (3) 3-hydroxyadipyl-CoA dehydratase, (4) an enzyme selected from 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA hydrolase, 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA transferase and 2,3-dehydroadipyl-CoA ligase, and (5) muconate reductase.

In some embodiments, the present invention provides a method for producing muconate that includes culturing a non-naturally occurring microbial organism having a muconate pathway. The pathway includes at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate, under conditions and for a sufficient period of time to produce muconate. The muconate pathway includes an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a lysine aminotransferase, a lysine aminating oxidoreductase, a 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, a 2-aminoadipate deaminase, a muconate reductase, a lysine-2,3-aminomutase, a 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminotransferase, a 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminating oxidoreductase, a 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, and a 3-aminoadipate deaminase.

In some embodiments, the muconate pathway includes, a set of muconate pathway enzymes such as those exemplified in FIG. 5; the set of muconate pathway enzymes are selected from the group consisting of:

A) (1) lysine aminotransferase, (2) lysine aminating oxidoreductase, (3) 2-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, (4) 2-aminoadipate deaminase, and (5) muconate reductase

B) (1) lysine-2,3-aminomutase, (2) 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminotransferase, (3) 3,6-diaminohexanoate aminating oxidoreductase, (4) 3-aminoadipate semialdehyde dehydrogenase, (5) 3-aminoadipate deaminase, and (6) muconate reductase.

In some embodiments, the foregoing non-naturally occurring microbial organism can be cultured in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.

Suitable purification and/or assays to test for the production of muconate can be performed using well known methods. Suitable replicates such as triplicate cultures can be grown for each engineered strain to be tested. For example, product and byproduct formation in the engineered production host can be monitored. The final product and intermediates, and other organic compounds, can be analyzed by methods such as HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography), GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy) and LC-MS (Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy) or other suitable analytical methods using routine procedures well known in the art. The release of product in the fermentation broth can also be tested with the culture supernatant. Byproducts and residual glucose can be quantified by HPLC using, for example, a refractive index detector for glucose and alcohols, and a UV detector for organic acids (Lin et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng. 90:775-779 (2005)), or other suitable assay and detection methods well known in the art. The individual enzyme or protein activities from the exogenous DNA sequences can also be assayed using methods well known in the art. For example, a spectrophotometric assay for succinyl-CoA:3-ketoacid-CoA transferase (FIG. 2, Step B) entails measuring the change in the absorbance corresponding to the product CoA molecule (i.e., succinyl-CoA) in the presence of the enzyme extract when supplied with succinate and β-ketoadipyl-CoA (Corthesy-Theulaz et al., J Biol Chem., 272(41) (1997)). Succinyl-CoA can alternatively be measured in the presence of excess hydroxylamine by complexing the succinohydroxamic acid formed to ferric salts as referred to in (Corthesy-Theulaz et al., J. Biol Chem. 272(41) (1997)). The specific activity of muconate reductase can be assayed in the reductive direction using a colorimetric assay adapted from the literature (Durre et al., FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 17:251-262 (1995); Palosaari et al., J. Bacteriol. 170:2971-2976 (1988); Welch et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 273:309-318 (1989)). In this assay, the substrates muconate and NADH are added to cell extracts in a buffered solution, and the oxidation of NADH is followed by reading absorbance at 340 nM at regular intervals. The resulting slope of the reduction in absorbance at 340 nM per minute, along with the molar extinction coefficient of NADH at 340 nM (6000) and the protein concentration of the extract, can be used to determine the specific activity of muconate reductase.

The muconate can be separated from other components in the culture using a variety of methods well known in the art, as briefly described above Such separation methods include, for example, extraction procedures as well as methods that include continuous liquid-liquid extraction, pervaporation, membrane filtration, membrane separation, reverse osmosis, electrodialysis, distillation, crystallization, centrifugation, extractive filtration, ion exchange chromatography, size exclusion chromatography, adsorption chromatography, and ultrafiltration. All of the above methods are well known in the art.

Any of the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms described herein can be cultured to produce and/or secrete the biosynthetic products of the invention. For example, the muconate producers can be cultured for the biosynthetic production of muconate.

For the production of muconate, the recombinant strains are cultured in a medium with carbon source and other essential nutrients. It is highly desirable to maintain anaerobic conditions in the fermenter to reduce the cost of the overall process. Such conditions can be obtained, for example, by first sparging the medium with nitrogen and then sealing the flasks with a septum and crimp-cap. For strains where growth is not observed anaerobically, microaerobic conditions can be applied by perforating the septum with a small hole for limited aeration. Exemplary anaerobic conditions have been described previously and are well-known in the art. Exemplary aerobic and anaerobic conditions are described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/891,602, filed Aug. 10, 2007. Fermentations can be performed in a batch, fed-batch or continuous manner, as disclosed herein.

If desired, the pH of the medium can be maintained at a desired pH, in particular neutral pH, such as a pH of around 7 by addition of a base, such as NaOH or other bases, or acid, as needed to maintain the culture medium at a desirable pH. The growth rate can be determined by measuring optical density using a spectrophotometer (600 nm), and the glucose uptake rate by monitoring carbon source depletion over time. NOTE—Ideally this process would operate at low pH using an organisms that tolerates pH levels in the range 2-4.

The growth medium can include, for example, any carbohydrate source which can supply a source of carbon to the non-naturally occurring microorganism. Such sources include, for example, sugars such as glucose, xylose, arabinose, galactose, mannose, fructose, sucrose and starch. Other sources of carbohydrate include, for example, renewable feedstocks and biomass. Exemplary types of biomasses that can be used as feedstocks in the methods of the invention include cellulosic biomass, hemicellulosic biomass and lignin feedstocks or portions of feedstocks. Such biomass feedstocks contain, for example, carbohydrate substrates useful as carbon sources such as glucose, xylose, arabinose, galactose, mannose, fructose and starch. Given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art will understand that renewable feedstocks and biomass other than those exemplified above also can be used for culturing the microbial organisms of the invention for the production of muconate.

In addition to renewable feedstocks such as those exemplified above, the muconate microbial organisms of the invention also can be modified for growth on syngas as its source of carbon. In this specific embodiment, one or more proteins or enzymes are expressed in the muconate producing organisms to provide a metabolic pathway for utilization of syngas or other gaseous carbon source.

Synthesis gas, also known as syngas or producer gas, is the major product of gasification of coal and of carbonaceous materials such as biomass materials, including agricultural crops and residues. Syngas is a mixture primarily of H₂ and CO and can be obtained from the gasification of any organic feedstock, including but not limited to coal, coal oil, natural gas, biomass, and waste organic matter. Gasification is generally carried out under a high fuel to oxygen ratio. Although largely H₂ and CO, syngas can also include CO₂ and other gases in smaller quantities. Thus, synthesis gas provides a cost effective source of gaseous carbon such as CO and, additionally, CO₂.

The Wood-Ljungdahl pathway catalyzes the conversion of CO and H₂ to acetyl-CoA and other products such as acetate. Organisms capable of utilizing CO and syngas also generally have the capability of utilizing CO₂ and CO₂/H₂ mixtures through the same basic set of enzymes and transformations encompassed by the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. H₂-dependent conversion of CO₂ to acetate by microorganisms was recognized long before it was revealed that CO also could be used by the same organisms and that the same pathways were involved. Many acetogens have been shown to grow in the presence of CO₂ and produce compounds such as acetate as long as hydrogen is present to supply the necessary reducing equivalents (see for example, Drake, Acetogenesis, pp. 3-60 Chapman and Hall, New York, (1994)). This can be summarized by the following equation: 2CO₂+4H₂ +nADP+nPi→CH₃COOH+2H₂O+nATP

Hence, non-naturally occurring microorganisms possessing the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway can utilize CO₂ and H₂ mixtures as well for the production of acetyl-CoA and other desired products.

The Wood-Ljungdahl pathway is well known in the art and consists of 12 reactions which can be separated into two branches: (1) methyl branch and (2) carbonyl branch. The methyl branch converts syngas to methyl-tetrahydrofolate (methyl-THF) whereas the carbonyl branch converts methyl-THF to acetyl-CoA. The reactions in the methyl branch are catalyzed in order by the following enzymes or proteins: ferredoxin oxidoreductase, formate dehydrogenase, formyltetrahydrofolate synthetase, methenyltetrahydrofolate cyclodehydratase, methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase. The reactions in the carbonyl branch are catalyzed in order by the following enzymes or proteins: methyltetrahydrofolate:corrinoid protein methyltransferase (for example, AcsE), corrinoid iron-sulfur protein, nickel-protein assembly protein (for example, AcsF), ferredoxin, acetyl-CoA synthase, carbon monoxide dehydrogenase and nickel-protein assembly protein (for example, CooC). Following the teachings and guidance provided herein for introducing a sufficient number of encoding nucleic acids to generate a muconate pathway, those skilled in the art will understand that the same engineering design also can be performed with respect to introducing at least the nucleic acids encoding the Wood-Ljungdahl enzymes or proteins absent in the host organism. Therefore, introduction of one or more encoding nucleic acids into the microbial organisms of the invention such that the modified organism contains the complete Wood-Ljungdahl pathway will confer syngas utilization ability.

Accordingly, given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art will understand that a non-naturally occurring microbial organism can be produced that secretes the biosynthesized compounds of the invention when grown on a carbon source such as a carbohydrate. Such compounds include, for example, muconate and any of the intermediate metabolites in the muconate pathway. All that is required is to engineer in one or more of the required enzyme or protein activities to achieve biosynthesis of the desired compound or intermediate including, for example, inclusion of some or all of the muconate biosynthetic pathways. Accordingly, the invention provides a non-naturally occurring microbial organism that produces and/or secretes muconate when grown on a carbohydrate or other carbon source and produces and/or secretes any of the intermediate metabolites shown in the muconate pathway when grown on a carbohydrate or other carbon source. The muconate producing microbial organisms of the invention can initiate synthesis from an intermediate, such as any of the intermediates shown in FIGS. 2-5.

The non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention are constructed using methods well known in the art as exemplified herein to exogenously express at least one nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme or protein in sufficient amounts to produce muconate. It is understood that the microbial organisms of the invention are cultured under conditions sufficient to produce muconate. Following the teachings and guidance provided herein, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention can achieve biosynthesis of muconate resulting in intracellular concentrations between about 0.1-200 mM or more. Generally, the intracellular concentration of muconate is between about 3-150 mM, particularly between about 5-200 mM and more particularly between about 8-150 mM, including about 10 mM, 50 mM, 75 mM, 100 mM, or more. Intracellular concentrations between and above each of these exemplary ranges also can be achieved from the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention.

In some embodiments, culture conditions include anaerobic or substantially anaerobic growth or maintenance conditions. Exemplary anaerobic conditions have been described previously and are well known in the art. Exemplary anaerobic conditions for fermentation processes are described herein and are described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/891,602, filed Aug. 10, 2007. Any of these conditions can be employed with the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms as well as other anaerobic conditions well known in the art. Under such anaerobic conditions, the muconate producers can synthesize muconate at intracellular concentrations of 5-10 mM or more as well as all other concentrations exemplified herein. It is understood that, even though the above description refers to intracellular concentrations, muconate producing microbial organisms can produce muconate intracellularly and/or secrete the product into the culture medium.

The culture conditions can include, for example, liquid culture procedures as well as fermentation and other large scale culture procedures. As described herein, particularly useful yields of the biosynthetic products of the invention can be obtained under anaerobic or substantially anaerobic culture conditions.

As described herein, one exemplary growth condition for achieving biosynthesis of muconate includes anaerobic culture or fermentation conditions. In certain embodiments, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention can be sustained, cultured or fermented under anaerobic or substantially anaerobic conditions. Briefly, anaerobic conditions refers to an environment devoid of oxygen. Substantially anaerobic conditions include, for example, a culture, batch fermentation or continuous fermentation such that the dissolved oxygen concentration in the medium remains between 0 and 10% of saturation. Substantially anaerobic conditions also includes growing or resting cells in liquid medium or on solid agar inside a sealed chamber maintained with an atmosphere of less than 1% oxygen. The percent of oxygen can be maintained by, for example, sparging the culture with an N₂/CO₂ mixture or other suitable non-oxygen gas or gases.

The culture conditions described herein can be scaled up and grown continuously for manufacturing of muconate. Exemplary growth procedures include, for example, fed-batch fermentation and batch separation; fed-batch fermentation and continuous separation, or continuous fermentation and continuous separation. All of these processes are well known in the art. Fermentation procedures are particularly useful for the biosynthetic production of commercial quantities of muconate. Generally, and as with non-continuous culture procedures, the continuous and/or near-continuous production of muconate will include culturing a non-naturally occurring muconate producing organism of the invention in sufficient nutrients and medium to sustain and/or nearly sustain growth in an exponential phase. Continuous culture under such conditions can be include, for example, 1 day, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 days or more. Additionally, continuous culture can include 1 week, 2, 3, 4 or 5 or more weeks and up to several months. Alternatively, organisms of the invention can be cultured for hours, if suitable for a particular application. It is to be understood that the continuous and/or near-continuous culture conditions also can include all time intervals in between these exemplary periods. It is further understood that the time of culturing the microbial organism of the invention is for a sufficient period of time to produce a sufficient amount of product for a desired purpose.

Fermentation procedures are well known in the art. Briefly, fermentation for the biosynthetic production of muconate can be utilized in, for example, fed-batch fermentation and batch separation; fed-batch fermentation and continuous separation, or continuous fermentation and continuous separation. Examples of batch and continuous fermentation procedures are well known in the art.

In addition to the above fermentation procedures using the muconate producers of the invention for continuous production of substantial quantities of muconate, the muconate producers also can be, for example, simultaneously subjected to chemical synthesis procedures to convert the product to other compounds or the product can be separated from the fermentation culture and sequentially subjected to chemical conversion to convert the product to other compounds, if desired.

In addition to the above procedures, growth condition for achieving biosynthesis of muconate can include the addition of an osmoprotectant to the culturing conditions. In certain embodiments, the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms of the invention can be sustained, cultured or fermented as described above in the presence of an osmoprotectant. Briefly, an osmoprotectant means a compound that acts as an osmolyte and helps a microbial organism as described herein survive osmotic stress. Osmoprotectants include, but are not limited to, betaines, amino acids, and the sugar trehalose. Non-limiting examples of such are glycine betaine, praline betaine, dimethylthetin, dimethylslfonioproprionate, 3-dimethylsulfonio-2-methylproprionate, pipecolic acid, dimethylsulfonioacetate, choline, L-carnitine and ectoine. In one aspect, the osmoprotectant is glycine betaine. It is understood to one of ordinary skill in the art that the amount and type of osmoprotectant suitable for protecting a microbial organism described herein from osmotic stress will depend on the microbial organism used. The amount of osmoprotectant in the culturing conditions can be, for example, no more than about 0.1 mM, no more than about 0.5 mM, no more than about 1.0 mM, no more than about 1.5 mM, no more than about 2.0 mM, no more than about 2.5 mM, no more than about 3.0 mM, no more than about 5.0 mM, no more than about 7.0 mM, no more than about 10 mM, no more than about 50 mM, no more than about 100 mM or no more than about 500 mM.

To generate better producers, metabolic modeling can be utilized to optimize growth conditions. Modeling can also be used to design gene knockouts that additionally optimize utilization of the pathway (see, for example, U.S. patent publications US 2002/0012939, US 2003/0224363, US 2004/0029149, US 2004/0072723, US 2003/0059792, US 2002/0168654 and US 2004/0009466, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,127,379). Modeling analysis allows reliable predictions of the effects on cell growth of shifting the metabolism towards more efficient production of muconate.

One computational method for identifying and designing metabolic alterations favoring biosynthesis of a desired product is the OptKnock computational framework (Burgard et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng. 84:647-657 (2003)). OptKnock is a metabolic modeling and simulation program that suggests gene deletion or disruption strategies that result in genetically stable microorganisms which overproduce the target product. Specifically, the framework examines the complete metabolic and/or biochemical network of a microorganism in order to suggest genetic manipulations that force the desired biochemical to become an obligatory byproduct of cell growth. By coupling biochemical production with cell growth through strategically placed gene deletions or other functional gene disruption, the growth selection pressures imposed on the engineered strains after long periods of time in a bioreactor lead to improvements in performance as a result of the compulsory growth-coupled biochemical production. Lastly, when gene deletions are constructed there is a negligible possibility of the designed strains reverting to their wild-type states because the genes selected by OptKnock are to be completely removed from the genome. Therefore, this computational methodology can be used to either identify alternative pathways that lead to biosynthesis of a desired product or used in connection with the non-naturally occurring microbial organisms for further optimization of biosynthesis of a desired product.

Briefly, OptKnock is a term used herein to refer to a computational method and system for modeling cellular metabolism. The OptKnock program relates to a framework of models and methods that incorporate particular constraints into flux balance analysis (FBA) models. These constraints include, for example, qualitative kinetic information, qualitative regulatory information, and/or DNA microarray experimental data. OptKnock also computes solutions to various metabolic problems by, for example, tightening the flux boundaries derived through flux balance models and subsequently probing the performance limits of metabolic networks in the presence of gene additions or deletions. OptKnock computational framework allows the construction of model formulations that enable an effective query of the performance limits of metabolic networks and provides methods for solving the resulting mixed-integer linear programming problems. The metabolic modeling and simulation methods referred to herein as OptKnock are described in, for example, U.S. publication 2002/0168654, filed Jan. 10, 2002, in International Patent No. PCT/US02/00660, filed Jan. 10, 2002, and U.S. publication 2009/0047719, filed Aug. 10, 2007.

Another computational method for identifying and designing metabolic alterations favoring biosynthetic production of a product is a metabolic modeling and simulation system termed SimPheny®. This computational method and system is described in, for example, U.S. publication 2003/0233218, filed Jun. 14, 2002, and in International Patent Application No. PCT/US03/18838, filed Jun. 13, 2003. SimPheny® is a computational system that can be used to produce a network model in silico and to simulate the flux of mass, energy or charge through the chemical reactions of a biological system to define a solution space that contains any and all possible functionalities of the chemical reactions in the system, thereby determining a range of allowed activities for the biological system. This approach is referred to as constraints-based modeling because the solution space is defined by constraints such as the known stoichiometry of the included reactions as well as reaction thermodynamic and capacity constraints associated with maximum fluxes through reactions. The space defined by these constraints can be interrogated to determine the phenotypic capabilities and behavior of the biological system or of its biochemical components.

These computational approaches are consistent with biological realities because biological systems are flexible and can reach the same result in many different ways. Biological systems are designed through evolutionary mechanisms that have been restricted by fundamental constraints that all living systems must face. Therefore, constraints-based modeling strategy embraces these general realities. Further, the ability to continuously impose further restrictions on a network model via the tightening of constraints results in a reduction in the size of the solution space, thereby enhancing the precision with which physiological performance or phenotype can be predicted.

Given the teachings and guidance provided herein, those skilled in the art will be able to apply various computational frameworks for metabolic modeling and simulation to design and implement biosynthesis of a desired compound in host microbial organisms. Such metabolic modeling and simulation methods include, for example, the computational systems exemplified above as SimPheny® and OptKnock. For illustration of the invention, some methods are described herein with reference to the OptKnock computation framework for modeling and simulation. Those skilled in the art will know how to apply the identification, design and implementation of the metabolic alterations using OptKnock to any of such other metabolic modeling and simulation computational frameworks and methods well known in the art.

The methods described above will provide one set of metabolic reactions to disrupt. Elimination of each reaction within the set or metabolic modification can result in a desired product as an obligatory product during the growth phase of the organism. Because the reactions are known, a solution to the bilevel OptKnock problem also will provide the associated gene or genes encoding one or more enzymes that catalyze each reaction within the set of reactions. Identification of a set of reactions and their corresponding genes encoding the enzymes participating in each reaction is generally an automated process, accomplished through correlation of the reactions with a reaction database having a relationship between enzymes and encoding genes.

Once identified, the set of reactions that are to be disrupted in order to achieve production of a desired product are implemented in the target cell or organism by functional disruption of at least one gene encoding each metabolic reaction within the set. One particularly useful means to achieve functional disruption of the reaction set is by deletion of each encoding gene. However, in some instances, it can be beneficial to disrupt the reaction by other genetic aberrations including, for example, mutation, deletion of regulatory regions such as promoters or cis binding sites for regulatory factors, or by truncation of the coding sequence at any of a number of locations. These latter aberrations, resulting in less than total deletion of the gene set can be useful, for example, when rapid assessments of the coupling of a product are desired or when genetic reversion is less likely to occur.

To identify additional productive solutions to the above described bilevel OptKnock problem which lead to further sets of reactions to disrupt or metabolic modifications that can result in the biosynthesis, including growth-coupled biosynthesis of a desired product, an optimization method, termed integer cuts, can be implemented. This method proceeds by iteratively solving the OptKnock problem exemplified above with the incorporation of an additional constraint referred to as an integer cut at each iteration. Integer cut constraints effectively prevent the solution procedure from choosing the exact same set of reactions identified in any previous iteration that obligatorily couples product biosynthesis to growth. For example, if a previously identified growth-coupled metabolic modification specifies reactions 1, 2, and 3 for disruption, then the following constraint prevents the same reactions from being simultaneously considered in subsequent solutions. The integer cut method is well known in the art and can be found described in, for example, Burgard et al., Biotechnol. Prog. 17:791-797 (2001). As with all methods described herein with reference to their use in combination with the OptKnock computational framework for metabolic modeling and simulation, the integer cut method of reducing redundancy in iterative computational analysis also can be applied with other computational frameworks well known in the art including, for example, SimPheny®.

The methods exemplified herein allow the construction of cells and organisms that biosynthetically produce a desired product, including the obligatory coupling of production of a target biochemical product to growth of the cell or organism engineered to harbor the identified genetic alterations. Therefore, the computational methods described herein allow the identification and implementation of metabolic modifications that are identified by an in silico method selected from OptKnock or SimPheny®. The set of metabolic modifications can include, for example, addition of one or more biosynthetic pathway enzymes and/or functional disruption of one or more metabolic reactions including, for example, disruption by gene deletion.

As discussed above, the OptKnock methodology was developed on the premise that mutant microbial networks can be evolved towards their computationally predicted maximum-growth phenotypes when subjected to long periods of growth selection. In other words, the approach leverages an organism's ability to self-optimize under selective pressures. The OptKnock framework allows for the exhaustive enumeration of gene deletion combinations that force a coupling between biochemical production and cell growth based on network stoichiometry. The identification of optimal gene/reaction knockouts requires the solution of a bilevel optimization problem that chooses the set of active reactions such that an optimal growth solution for the resulting network overproduces the biochemical of interest (Burgard et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng. 84:647-657 (2003)).

An in silico stoichiometric model of E. coli metabolism can be employed to identify essential genes for metabolic pathways as exemplified previously and described in, for example, U.S. patent publications US 2002/0012939, US 2003/0224363, US 2004/0029149, US 2004/0072723, US 2003/0059792, US 2002/0168654 and US 2004/0009466, and in U.S. Pat. No. 7,127,379. As disclosed herein, the OptKnock mathematical framework can be applied to pinpoint gene deletions leading to the growth-coupled production of a desired product. Further, the solution of the bilevel OptKnock problem provides only one set of deletions. To enumerate all meaningful solutions, that is, all sets of knockouts leading to growth-coupled production formation, an optimization technique, termed integer cuts, can be implemented. This entails iteratively solving the OptKnock problem with the incorporation of an additional constraint referred to as an integer cut at each iteration, as discussed above.

It is understood that modifications which do not substantially affect the activity of the various embodiments of this invention are also provided within the definition of the invention provided herein. Accordingly, the following examples are intended to illustrate but not limit the present invention.

Example I Demonstration of Enzyme Activity for Condensing Succinyl-CoA and Acetyl-CoA to Form β-ketoadipyl-CoA

This Example shows the identification of enzymes for the formation of beta-ketoadipyl-CoA from succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA.

Several β-ketothiolase enzymes have been shown to break β-ketoadipyl-CoA into acetyl-CoA and succinyl-CoA. For example, the gene products encoded by pcaF in Pseudomonas strain B13 (Kaschabek et al., J. Bacteriol. 184(1): 207-15 (2002)), phaD in Pseudomonas putida U (Olivera et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 95(11), 6419-24 (1998)), paaE in Pseudomonas fluorescens ST (Di Gennaro et al., Arch Microbiol, 188(2), 117-25 (2007)), and paaJ from E. coli (Nogales et al., Microbiology 153(Pt 2), 357-65 (2007)) catalyze the conversion of 3-oxoadipyl-CoA into succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA during the degradation of aromatic compounds such as phenylacetate or styrene. To confirm that β-ketothiolase enzymes exhibit condensation activity, several thiolases (Table 53) were cloned into a derivative of pZE13 (Lutz et al., Nucleic Acids Res, 29(18), 3873-81 (2001)), which results in the clones having a carboxy-terminal 6×His tag.

TABLE 53  Cloned Thiolases Enzyme Species template Gene Length 5′ PRIMER 3′ PRIMER ORF SEQ beta- Ralstonia bktB 1185 ATGACGCGTG GATACGCTCGA atgacgcgtgaagtggtagtggtaagcggtgtccgtaccgcgatcgggacctttggcg ketothiolase eutropha H16 AAGTGGTAGT AGATGGCGG gcagcctgaaggatgtggcaccggcggagctgggcgcactggtggtgcgcgaggc GGTAAG gctggcgcgcgcgcaggtgtcgggcgacgatgtcggccacgtggtattcggcaacgt gatccagaccgagccgcgcgacatgtatctgggccgcgtcgcggccgtcaacggcg gggtgacgatcaacgcccccgcgctgaccgtgaaccgcctgtgcggctcgggcctgc aggccattgtcagcgccgcgcagaccatcctgctgggcgataccgacgtcgccatcg gcggcggcgcggaaagcatgagccgcgcaccgtacctggcgccggcagcgcgctg gggcgcacgcatgggcgacgccggcctggtcgacatgatgctgggtgcgctgcacg atcccttccatcgcatccacatgggcgtgaccgccgagaatgtcgccaaggaatacga catctcgcgcgcgcagcaggacgaggccgcgctggaatcgcaccgccgcgcttcgg cagcgatcaaggccggctacttcaaggaccagatcgtcccggtggtgagcaagggcc gcaagggcgacgtgaccttcgacaccgacgagcacgtgcgccatgacgccaccatc gacgacatgaccaagctcaggccggtatcgtcaaggaaaacggcacggtcacggcc ggcaatgcctcgggcctgaacgacgccgccgccgcggtggtgatgatggagcgcgc cgaagccgagcgccgcggcctgaagccgctggcccgcctggtgtcgtacggccatg ccggcgtggacccgaaggccatgggcatcggcccggtgccggcgacgaagatcgc gctggagcgcgccggcctgcaggtgtcggacctggacgtgatcgaagccaacgaag cctttgccgcacaggcgtgcgccgtgaccaaggcgctcggtctggacccggccaagg ttaacccgaacggctcgggcatctcgctgggccacccgatcggcgccaccggtgccc tgatcacggtgaaggcgctgcatgagctgaaccgcgtgcagggccgctacgcgctgg tgacgatgtgcatcggcggcgggcagggcattgccgccatcttcgagcgtatctga 2-Methyl- Mus musculus ACAT1 1215 ATGGAAGTAA CAGCTTCTCAAT atggaagtaagatgcctggaacgaagttatgcatccaaacccactttgaatgaagtggtt acetoacetyl- GATGCCTGGA CAGCAGGGC atagtaagtgctataagaactcccattggatccttcctgggcagccttgcctctcagccg CoA ACGAAG gccactaaacttggtactgctgcaattcagggagccattgagaaggcagggattccaaa Thiolase agaagaagtgaaggaagtctacatgggcaatgtcatccaagggggtgaaggacagg (branched cccctaccaggcaagcaacactgggcgcaggtttacctatttccactccatgcaccaca chain?) gtaaacaaggtttgtgcttcaggaatgaaagccatcatgatggcctctcaaagtcttatgt gtggacatcaggatgtgatggtggcaggcgggatggagagcatgtccaatgtcccata cgtaatgagcagaggagcaacaccatatggtggggtaaaacttgaagacctgattgta aaagacgggctaactgatgtctacaataaaattcatatgggtaactgtgctgagaatact gcaaagaagatgaatatctcacggcaggaacaggatacgtacgctctcagctcttacac cagaagtaaagaagcgtgggacgcagggaagtttgccagtgagattactcccatcacc atctcagtgaaaggtaaaccagatgtggtggtgaaagaagatgaagaatacaagcgtg ttgactttagtaaagtgccaaagctcaagaccgtgttccagaaagaaaatggcacaata acagctgccaatgccagcacactgaacgatggagcagctgctctggttctcatgactgc agaggcagcccagaggctcaatgttaagccattggcacgaattgcagcatttgctgatg ctgccgtagaccccattgattttccacttgcgcctgcatatgccgtacctaaggttcttaaa tatgcaggactgaaaaaagaagacattgccatgtgggaagtaaatgaagcattcagtgt ggttgtgctagccaacattaaaatgctggagattgacccccaaaaagtaaatatccacg gaggagctgtttctctgggccatccaattgggatgtctggagcccggattgttgttcatat ggctcatgccctgaagccaggagagttcggtctggctagtatttgcaacggaggagga ggtgcttccgccctgctgattgagaagctgtag 2-Methyl- Pseudomonas fadAx 1194 ATGACCCTCG GTACAGGCATTC atgaccctcgccaatgaccccatcgttatcgtcagcgccgtgcgcacgcccatgggcg acetoacetyl- putida (K12440) CCAATGACCC AACAGCCATGG ggttgcagggcgacctcaagagcctgactgcgccgcaactgggcagcgccgccattc CoA gtgctgccgtggaacgggccggcatcgatgccgccggtgtcgagcaggtactgttcg Thiolase gctgcgtgctgccggccggccagggccaggcaccggcacgccaggccgcgctggg (branched cgccgggctggacaagcacaccacctgcaccaccctgaacaagatgtgcggctcgg chain?) gtatgcaagccgcgatcatggcccatgacctgctgctggccggcaccgcagacgtgg tagtggcgggtggcatggaaagcatgaccaacgcgccgtacctgctggacaaagccc gtggcggctaccgcatgggccacggcaagatcatcgaccacatgttcatggacggtct cgaagacgcctacgacaaaggccgcctgatgggtacctttgccgaggactgtgccca ggccaatgccttcagccgcgaggcccaggaccagttcgccatcgcctcgctgacccg agcgcaggaagccatcagcagcggccgttttgccgccgagatcgtgccggtggaagt caccgagggcaaggaaaagcgcgtcatcaaggatgacgagcagccgcccaaggcg cgtctggacaagattgcgcagctcaaaccggcgtttcgtgaaggcggcaccgtgacg gcggccaacgccagttcgatttccgacggcgctgcggcgctggtactgatgcgccgct ccgaggccgacaaacgtggcctcaagccattggccgtcatccacggccacgccgcct ttgccgacaccccggcgctgttcccgaccgccccgatcggcgcgatcgacaaactgat gaaacgcaccggctggaacctggccgaagtcgacctgttcgagatcaacgaggcctt cgccgtggtcaccctggcggccatgaaacacctcgacctgccacacgacaaggtcaa tatccacggcggcgcctgcgccctcggtcacccgatcggcgcnctggcgcacgtatt ctggtcaccctgttgtcggccttgcgccagaacaatctgcgtcggggtgtggcggccat ctgcatcggcggtggcgaggccacggccatggctgttgaatgcctgtactga beta- Caenorhabditis kat-1 1167 ATGAACAAAC TAATTTCTGGAT atgaacaaacatgctttcatcgtcggagccgcccgtacacctattggatcatttcgttatc ketothiolase elegans ATGCTTTCATC AACCATTCCACT tctctcttcggtaactgctccagagctcgcctcggttgccatcaaagcagcattggagcg GTCG TGAGC tggagcagtgaagccgagttcaattcaggaggtgttccttggtcaagtctgtcaagcaa atgctggtcaagctcccgctcgtcaagcagacttggagccggactcgatctttcggag ctgttaccaccgtcaataaagtgtgctatctgggctgaaagcaatcattcttgctgccca gcaaattcaaaccggtcatcaagattagccattggcggaggaatggagagcatgtcac aagtaccattttatgttcaaagaggagagatcccatatggtggatttcaagtgattgatgg aatcgtcaaagacggactgaccgatgcttatgataaagttcacatgggaaactgcggag agaagacttcaaaagaaatgggaattacacgtaaagaccaagacgaatatgctatcaa cagctacaaaaagtcagctaaagcatgggagaatggaaatatcggaccagaagtggt gccagtgaacgtcaaatcaaagaagggagtcacgattgttgataaagatgaagagttca caaaagtcaatttcgacaagttcacctcgctgagaactgttttccagaaagacggaacta tcactgctgctaatgcttcaacattgaacgacggtgcagctgctgtcattgttgcctcaca ggaagcagtttccgagcaaagataaagcctctggcccgaattttggcttatggagatgc cgccacgcacccactcgatttcgctgtagcaccaactttgatgttcccaaaaattatgaa agagcaggagtgaagcaatcagatgttgctcaatgggaagttaatgaagccttctcatgt gaccuttgctacatcaaaaaactaggagtcgatccatccatgtgaacccacatggag gagctgtttcaattggtcaccccatcggaatgtccggagcccgcctcatcactcatcttgt gcacacactcaaaagtggccaaatcggagttgctgccatttgcaatggaggtggtggct caagtggaatggttatccagaaattataa beta- Escherichia coli paaJ 1206 ATGCGTGAAG AACACGCTCCA atgcgtgaagcctttatttgtgacggaattcgtacgccaattggtcgctacggcggggca ketothiolase CCTTTATTTGT GAATCATGGCG ttatcaagtgttcgggctgatgatctggctgctatccctttgcgggaactgctggtgcgaa NP_415915.1 GACG acccgcgtctcgatgcggagtgtatcgatgatgtgatcctcggctgtgctaatcaggcg ggagaagataaccgtaacgtagcccggatggcgactttactggcggggctgccgcag agtgtttccggcacaaccattaaccgcttgtgtggttccgggctggacgcactggggttt gccgcacgggcgattaaagcgggcgatggcgatttgctgatcgccggtggcgtggag tcaatgtcacgggcaccgtagttatgggcaaggcagccagtgcattttctcgtcaggct gagatgttcgataccactattggctggcgatttgtgaacccgctcatggctcagcaatttg gaactgacagcatgccggaaacggcagagaatgtagctgaactgttaaaaatctcacg agaagatcaagatagttttgcgctacgcagtcagcaacgtacggcaaaagcgcaatcc tcaggcattctggctgaggagattgttccggttgtgttgaaaaacaagaaaggtgttgta acagaaatacaacatgatgagcatctgcgcccggaaacgacgctggaacagttacgtg ggttaaaagcaccatttcgtgccaatggggtgattaccgcaggcaatgcttccggggtg aatgacggagccgctgcgttgattattgccagtgaacagatggcagcagcgcaagga ctgacaccgcgggcgcgtatcgtagccatggcaaccgccggggtggaaccgcgcct gatggggcaggtccggtgcctgcaactcgccgggtgctggaacgcgcagggctgag tattcacgatatggacgtgattgaactgaacgaagcgttcgcggcccaggcgttgggtg tactacgcgaattggggctgcctgatgatgccccacatgttaaccccaacggaggcgct atcgccttaggccatccgttgggaatgagtggtgcccgcctggcactggctgccagcc atgagctgcatcggcgtaacggtcgttacgcattgtgcaccatgtgcatcggtgtcggtc agggcatcgccatgattctggagcgtgtttga beta- Pseudomonas phaD 1221 ATGAATGAAC GAGGCGCTCGA atgaatgaaccgacccacgccgatgccttgatcatcgacgccgtgcgcacgcccattg ketothiolase putida (KT2440) CGACCCACGC TGATCATGG gccgctatgccggggccctgagcagcgtgcgcgccgacgacctggcggccatcccg AAN68887.1 C ctcaaagccttgatccagcgtcaccccgaactggactggaaagccattgatgacgttat cttcggctgtgccaaccaggctggcgaagacaaccgcaacgtggcccacatggcga gcctgctggccgggctgccactcgaagtaccagggaccacgatcaaccgcctgtgcg gttccggtctggatgccatcggtaatgcggcacgtgccctgcgctgcggtgaagcggg gctcatgctggccggtggtgtggagtccatgtcgcgtgcaccgtttgtgatgggtaagt cggagcaggcattcgggcgtgcggccgagctgttcgacaccaccatcggctggcgttt cgtcaacccgctgatgaaggccgcctacggcatcgattcgatgccggaaacggctga aaacgtggccgaacagttcggcatctcgcgcgccgaccaggatgcctttgccctgcgc agccagcacaaagccgcagcagctcaggcccgcggccgcctggcgcgggaaatcg tgccggtcgaaatcccgcaacgcaaaggcccagccaaagtggtcgagcatgacgag cacccgcgcggcgacacgaccctggagcagctggctcggctcgggacgccgtttcgt gaaggcggcagcgtaacggcgggtaatgcctccggcgtgaatgacggcgcttgcgc cctgctgctggccagcagcgccgcggcccgccgccatgggttgaaggcccgcggcc gcatcgtcggcatggcggtggccggggttgagcccaggctgatgggcattggtccgg tgcctgcgacccgcaaggtgctggcgctcaccggcctggcactggctgacctggatgt catcgaactcaatgaggcctttgccgcccaagggctggccgtgttgcgcgagctgggc ctggccgacgacgacccgcgagtcaaccgcaacggcggcgccatcgccctgggcc atcccctgggcatgagcggtgcccggttggtgaccactgccttgcacgagcttgaaga aacggccggccgctacgccctgtgcaccatgtgcatcggcgtaggccaaggcattgc catgatcatcgagcgcctctga beta- Clostridium thiA 1179 ATGAAAGAAG GCACTTTTCTAG atgaaagaagttgtaatagctagtgcagtaagaacagcgattggatcttatggaaagtct ketothiolase acetobutylicum TTGTAATAGCT CAATATTGCTGT cttaaggatgtaccagcagtagatttaggagctacagctataaaggaagcagttaaaaa NP_349476.1 ATCC 824 AGTGCAGTAA TCC agcaggaataaaaccagaggatgttaatgaagtcattttaggaaatgttcttcaagcagg GAAC tttaggacagaatccagcaagacaggcatcttttaaagcaggattaccagttgaaattcc agctatgactattaataaggtttgtggttcaggacttagaacagttagcttagcagcacaa attataaaagcaggagatgctgacgtaataatagcaggtggtatggaaaatatgtctaga gctccttacttagcgaataacgctagatggggatatagaatgggaaacgctaaatttgtt gatgaaatgatcactgacggattgtgggatgcatttaatgattaccacatgggaataaca gcagaaaacatagctgagagatggaacatttcaagagaagaacaagatgagtttgctct tgcatcacaaaaaaaagctgaagaagctataaaatcaggtcaatttaaagatgaaatagt tcctgtagtaattaaaggcagaaagggagaaactgtagttgatacagatgagcacccta gatttggatcaactatagaaggacttgcaaaattaaaacctgccttcaaaaaagatggaa cagttacagctggtaatgcatcaggattaaatgactgtgcagcagtacttgtaatcatgag tgcagaaaaagctaaagagcttggagtaaaaccacttgctaagatagtttcttatggttca gcaggagttgacccagcaataatgggatatggacctttctatgcaacaaaagcagctatt gaaaaagcaggttggacagttgatgaattagatttaatagaatcaaatgaagcttttgcag ctcaaagtttagcagtagcaaaagatttaaaatttgatatgaataaagtaaatgtaaatgg aggagctattgcccttggtcatccaattggagcatcaggtgcaagaatactcgttactctt gtacacgcaatgcaaaaaagagatgcaaaaaaaggcttagcaactttatgtataggtgg cggacaaggaacagcaatattgctagaaaagtgctag beta- Clostridium thiB 1179 ATGAGAGATG GTCTCTTTCAAC atgagagatgtagtaatagtaagtgctgtaagaactgcaataggagcatatggaaaaac ketothiolase acetobutylicum TAGTAATAGT TACGAGAGCTGT attaaaggatgtacctgcaacagagttaggagctatagtaataaaggaagctgtaagaa NP_149242.1 ATCC 824 AAGTGCTGTA TCCC gagctaatataaatccaaatgagattaatgaagttatttttggaaatgtacttcaagctgga AGAACTG ttaggccaaaacccagcaagacaagcagcagtaaaagcaggattacctttagaaacac ctgcgtttacaatcaataaggtttgtggttcaggataagatctataagtttagcagctcaaa ttataaaagctggagatgctgataccattgtagtaggtggtatggaaaatatgtctagatc accatatttgattaacaatcagagatggggtcaaagaatgggagatagtgaattagttga tgaaatgataaaggatggtttgtgggatgcatttaatggatatcatatgggagtaactgca gaaaatattgcagaacaatggaatataacaagagaagagcaagatgaattttcacttatg tcacaacaaaaagctgaaaaagccattaaaaatggagaatttaaggatgaaatagttcct gtattaataaagactaaaaaaggtgaaatagtctttgatcaagatgaatttcctagattcgg aaacactattgaagcattaagaaaacttaaacctattttcaaggaaaatggtactgttaca gcaggtaatgcatccggattaaatgatggagctgcagcactagtaataatgagcgctga taaagctaacgctctcggaataaaaccacttgctaagattacttcttacggatcatatggg gtagatccatcaataatgggatatggagctttttatgcaactaaagctgccttagataaaat taatttaaaacctgaagacttagatttaattgaagctaacgaggcatatgcttctcaaagta tagcagtaactagagatttaaatttagatatgagtaaagttaatgttaatggtggagctata gcacttggacatccaataggtgcatctggtgcacgtattttagtaacattactatacgctat gcaaaaaagagattcaaaaaaaggtcttgctactctatgtattggtggaggtcagggaa cagctctcgtagttgaaagagactaa 3-oxoadipyl- Candida albicans POT98 1182 ATGTTCAAGA CTCGTTAGCAAA atgttcaagaaatcagctaatgatattgttgttattgcagcaaagagaactccaatcacca CoA thiolase SC5314 AATCAGCTAA CAAGGCAGCG agtcaattaaaggtgggttgagtagattatttcctgaggaaatattatatcaagtggttaag TGATATTGTTG ggtactgtatcagattcacaagttgatttaaacttgattgatgatgtgttagtcggtacggtc ttgcaaactttagggggacagaaagctagtgccttggccattaaaaagattggattccca attaagaccacggttaatacggtcaatcgtcaatgtgctagttctgctcaagcgattactta tcaagcaggtagtttgcgtagtggggagaatcaatttgctattgctgctggagtagaaag tatgactcatgattattttcctcatcgtgggattcccacaagaatttctgaatcatttttagctg atgcatccgatgaagctaaaaacgtcttgatgccaatggggataaccagtgaaaatgtt gccactaaatatggaatttctcgtaaacaacaagatgagtttgcccttaattctcatttgaa agcagacaaggctacaaaactgggtcattttgcaaaagaaatcattcctattcaaacaac ggatgaaaacaaccaacacgtttcaataaccaaagatgatggtataaggggaagttcaa caattgaaaagttgggtggcttaaaacctgtgttcaaggatgatgggactactactgctg gtaattcctcgcaaatttcagatggagggtctgctgtgattttaactactcgtcaaaatgct gagaaatcgggagtaaagccaatagctagatttattggttcgtcagtagctggtgttcctt cgggacttatgggaattggtccatcggctgctattcctcaattgttgtcgagattaaatgtt gacacgaaagacattgatattttgaattgaacgaggcatttgcatcccaactgatttattg tattgaaaaattgggtcttgattatgataaagtcaatccatatggtggagctatagccttgg gacatccattaggagccactggcgcaagagttacggcaacgttgcttaatggattaaaa gatcagaataaagagttgggtgtcatctcaatgtgcacatccacaggtcaaggatacgc tgccttgtttgctaacgagtag 3-oxoadipyl- Candida albicans POT1 1227 ATGGATAGAT TTCCTTAATCAA atggatagattaaatcaattaagtggtcaattaaaaccaacttcaaaacaatcccttactca CoA thiolase SC5314 TAAATCAATT TATGGAGGCAG aaagaacccagacgatgttgtcatcgttgcagcatacagaactgccatcggtaaaggttt AAGTGGTCAA CAC caaagggtctttcaaatcttgtgcaatctgaattcatcttgactgaattcttgaaagaatttatt TTAAAACC aaaaagactggagtcgatgcatctttgattgaagatgttgctattggtaacgttttgaacca agctgctggtgccaccgaacacagaggtgctagtttggctgcaggtattccttacactgc agctttccttgccatcaacagattgtgttcctcagggttaatggccatttctgacattgcca acaaaatcaaaaccggtgaaatcgaatgtggtcttgctggtggtattgaatccatgtctaa aaactatggtagtccaaaagttattccaaagattgacccacacttggctgatgacgaaca aatgagtaaatgtttgattccaatgggtatcaccaacgaaaatgttgctaatgaattcaac attccaagagaaaaacaagatgcctttgctgctaaatcttatagtaaagccgaaaaagcc atctcctctggagctttcaaagatgaaatcttaccaatcagatccattatcagatccccag acggttctgaaaaagaaatcattgtcgataccgacgaaggtccaagaaagggtgttgac gctgcttccttgagcaaattgaaaccagcatttggtggtactaccactgccggtaacgctt ctcaaatttcagatggtgctgctggtgttttattgatgaagagaagtttggctgaagccaa aggttacccaattgttgctaaatacattgcttgttcaactgttggtgttccgccagaaatcat gggtgttggtccagcttacgccattccagaagtgttgaagagaactggattgactgtgga tgacgttgatgtgtttgaaatcaacgaagcttttgctgctcaatgtctttactcagctgaaca atgtaatgttccagaagaaaaattgaacataaacggtggtgccatcgctttaggtcatcct cttggttgtactggtgccagacaatatgccactatcttgagattgttgaaaccaggtgaaa ttggtttgacttctatgtgtatcggtagtggtatgggtgctgcctccatattgattaaggaat at 3-oxoadipyl- Candida albicans POT2 1233 ATGTCATCCA TTCTCTAACCAA atgtcatccaaacaacaatacttgaagaagaatcctgacgatgtcgttgtcgttgcagcat CoA thiolase SC5314 AACAACAATA AACAGAAGCAG acagaactgctttaaccaaaggtggaagaggtggattcaaagatgttggatctgatttcc CTTGAAGAAG CACC ttttgaaaaaattgactgaagaatttgttaaaaaaactggtgttgaccctaaaatcattcaa gatgctgccattggtaatgtcttgaacagaagagctggtgatttcgaacatagaggtgca ttattatctgctggattaccttattcagttccatttgttgcccttaacagacaatgttcatctgg gttaatggccatttctcaagtggccaacaagatcaagactggtgaaattgaatgtggttta gctggtggtgttgaaagtatgacaaaaaactatggtccagaagcattgattgctattgac cctgcttatgaaaaagacccagaatttgttaaaaacggtattccaatgggtattactaatg aaaatgtttgtgccaaattcaatatttcaagagatgttcaagatcaatttgctgctgaatctt atcaaaaagctgaaaaggcacaaaaagaaggtaaatttgatgatgaaattttaccaattg aagttttccaagaagatgaagatgctgaagatgaagacgaagatgaagatgaagatgc tgaaccaaaagaaaaattggttgttattagtaaagatgaaggtattagaccaggtgttact aaagaaaaattggctaaaattaaaccagctttcaaatctgatggtgtatcttcagctggta actcttcacaagtttccgatggtgctgccttggtgttattgatgaaacgttcatttgctgaaa agaatggattcaaaccattggctaaatacatttcttgtggtgttgctggtgtcccaccaga aattatgggtattggtccagctgttgccattccaaaagttttgaaacaaactggattatcag tcagtgatattgatatttatgaaatcaatgaagcatttgccggtcaatgtttgtactcaattg aagttgtaatattccaagagaaaaagtcaatcttaatgggggtgctattgccttgggtcac cctcttggttgtactggtgctagacaatacgctactattttaagattgttaaaaccaggtga atttggtgtgacttctatgtgtattggtactggtatgggtgctgcttctgttttggttagagaa taa beta- Pseudomonas pcaF 1206 ATGAGCCGCG GACCCGCTCGAT atgagccgcgaggtattcatctgcgatgccgtgcgcacgccgatcggccgtttcggcg ketoadipyl aeruginosa PAO1 AGGTATTCAT GGCCAG gcagtctttccgcggtgcgcgccgacgacctcgcggcggtgccgtgaaggccctgg CoA thiolase CTG tcgagcgcaacccgggggtcgactggtcggcgttggacgaggtgttcctcggctgcg pcaF ccaaccaggccggcgaggacaaccgtaacgtggcgcgcatggcgctgctgctggcc ggtttgccggagagcgtgcccggcgtcaccctcaaccgcctctgcgcctcggggatg gacgccatcggcacggcgttccgcgccatcgcctgcggcgagatggagctggccatc gccggcggcgtcgagtcgatgtcgcgcgcgccgtacgtgatgggcaaggccgatag cgccttcggtcgcggccagaagatcgaggacaccaccatcggctggcgcttcgtcaat ccgctgatgaaggagcagtacggcatcgacccgatgccgcagaccgccgacaacgt cgccgacgactatcgcgtgtcgcgtgccgaccaggatgccttcgccctgcgcagcca gcagcgcgccggcagggcgcaggaggccggtttcttcgccgaggaaatcgtcccgg tgacgattcgcgggcgcaagggcgacaccctggtcgagcacgacgagcatccgcgt cccgacaccaccctggaggcgctggcccggctcaagccggtcaacgggccggaga agaccgtcaccgccggcaacgcgtccggggtcaacgacggcgccgccgcgctggt cctggcctccgccgaggcagtggagaagcacggcctgactccgcgcgcgcgggtgc tgggcatggccagcgccggcgtcgccccacggatcatgggcatcggcccggtgccg gcggtgcgcaagctgctgcggcgcctggacctggcgatcgacgccttcgacgtgatc gaactcaacgaagccttcgccagccagggcctggcctgcctgcgcgaactgggcgtg gccgacgacagtgagaaggtcaacccgaacggcggtgccatcgccctcggccaccc gctggggatgagcggtgcgcggctggtcctcaccgcgctccatcaacttgagaaagag cggcggccggcgcggcctggcgaccatgtgcgtaggcgtcggccaaggcctggcg ctggccatcgagcgggtctga acyl-CoA Pseudomonas bkt 1206 ATGCTCGATG TCGGCAGCGCTC atgctcgatgcctatatctacgccggcctgcgtacgcctttcggccggcatgccggtgc thiolase aeruginosa PAO1 CCTATATCTAC GATCAC actctcgacggtgcgtccggacgacctggccggcctgctgctggcgcgtctcgcgga GCC aacctccgggttcgccgtcgacgacctggaggatgtgatcctcggttgcaccaaccag gccggcgaagacagccgcaacctggcgcgcaacgcgctgctcgcagccggcctgc cggcgcggctgcccgggcagacggtcaaccgcttgtgtgccagcggactgtcggcg gtgatcgacgcggcgcgcgcgatcagttgcggtgagggccggctgtacctggccgg cggcgccgaaagcatgtcccgggcgccgttcgtcatgggcaaggcggagagcgcct tcagccgcacgctggaggtcttcgacagcaccatcggcgcgcgcttcgccaacccca ggctggtcgagcgctatggcaacgacagcatgccggagaccggcgacaacgtggcc cgcgccttcggcatcgcccgcgaagacgccgaccgtttcgccgcttcttcccaggcgc gctaccaggctgcgctggaggagggctttttcctcggcgagatccttccggtggaggt gcgtgccggacgcaagggcgagacgcggctggtggagcgcgacgagcatccgcg accgcaggccgacctggcggccctggcgcgcttgccggcgttgttcgccggtggggt agtgaccgccggtaatgcgtctgggatcaacgacggggcggcggtagtgctgctggg cgatcgcgcgatcggcgagcgcgagggcatccggccgttggcgcggatcctcgcca gcgccagcgtcggcgtcgagccccggttgatgggcatcggcccgcagcaggcgatc ctccgcgcgctgcaacgcgccggcatcgacctggacgaggtcggcctgatcgagatc aacgaagccttcgcgccgcaggtcctggccttgcctgaagttgctcggcctggactacg aggacccgcgggtcaatccccatggcggcgccattgccctcggccatccgctcggcg cctccggtgcgcgcctggtgctcaccgccgcccgcgggctgcaacgcatcgagcgg cgctacgcggtggtcagcctgtgcgtcgggctcggccagggcgtggcgatggtgatc gagcgctgccgatga 3-oxoadipyl- Pseudomonas pcaF 1203 ATGCACGACG AACCCGCTCGAT atgcacgacgtattcatctgtgacgccatccgtaccccgatcggccgcttcggcggcgc CoA thiolase putida (KT2440) TATTCATCTGT GGCCAAC cctggccagcgtgcgggccgacgacctggccgccgtgccgctgaaggcgctgatcg GACG agcgcaaccctggcgtgcagtgggaccaggtagacgaagtgttcttcggctgcgcca accaggccggtgaagacaaccgcaacgtggcccgcatggcactgctgctggccggc ctgccggaaagcatcccgggcgtcaccctgaaccgtctgtgcgcgtcgggcatggat gccgtcggcaccgcgttccgcgccatcgccagcggcgagatggagctggtgattgcc ggtggcgtcgagtcgatgtcgcgcgccccgttcgtcatgggcaaggctgaaagcgcc tattcgcgcaacatgaagctggaagacaccaccattggctggcgttcatcaacccgct gatgaagagccagtacggtgtggattccatgccggaaaccgccgacaacgtggccga cgactatcaggtttcgcgtgctgatcaggacgctttcgccctgcgcagccagcagaag gctgccgctgcgcaggctgccggcttctttgccgaagaaatcgtgccggtgcgtatcg ctcacaagaaggcgaaatcatcgtcgaacgtgacgaacacctgcgcccggaaacca cgctggaggcgctgaccaagctcaaaccggtcaacggcccggacaagacggtcacc gccggcaacgcctcgggcgtgaacgacggtgctgcggcgatgatcctggcctcggc cgcagcggtgaagaaacacggcctgactccgcgtgcccgcgttctgggcatggccag cggcggcgttgcgccacgtgtcatgggcattggcccggtgccggcggtgcgcaaact gaccgagcgtctggggatagcggtaagtgatttcgacgtgatcgagcttaacgaagcg tttgccagccaaggcctggcggtgctgcgtgagctgggtgtggctgacgatgcgcccc aggtaaaccctaatggcggtgccattgccctgggccaccccctgggcatgagcggtg cacgcctggtactgactgcgttgcaccagctggagaagagtggcggtcgcaagggcc tggcgaccatgtgtgtgggtgtcggccaaggtctggcgttggccatcgagcgggtttg a 3-oxoadipyl- Burkholderia bkt 1203 ATGACCGACG CACGCGTTCGAT atgaccgacgcctacatctgcgatgcgattcgcacacccatcggccgctacggcggc CoA thiolase ambifaria AMMD CCTACATCTGC CGCGATC gccctgaaagacgttcgtgccgacgatctcggcgcggtgccgctcaaggcgctgatc G gaacgcaaccggaacgtcgactggtcggcgatcgacgacgtgatctatggctgcgcg aaccaggccggcgaagacaaccgcaacgtcgcgcgcatgtccgcgctgctcgcggg cttgccgaccgccgtgccgggcacgacgctgaaccggttatgcggctcgggcatgg cgccgtcggcacggccgcgcgcgcgatcaaggcgggcgaggcacgcttgatgatc gcgggcggcgtcgaaagcatgacgcgcgcgccgttcgtgatgggcaaggccgcca gcgcattcgcgcgccaggctgcgattttcgacacgacgatcggctggcgtttcattaatc cgctgatgaaacagcaatacggcgtcgattcgatgcccgagacggccgagaacgtcg cggtcgactacaacatcagccgcgccgaccaggatctattcgcgctgcgcagccagc agaaggccgcgcgtgcgcagcaggacggcacgctcgccgccgaaatcgtccccgtc acgattgcgcagaaaaaaggcgacgcgctcgtcgtatcgctcgacgagcatccgcgc gaaacatcgctcgaagcgctcgcgaagctgaagggcgtcgtgcgtcccgacggctcg gtcacggccggcaacgcgtcaggcgtcaacgacggcgcatgcgcactgctgctcgc caacgcggaagccgccgatcaatatgggctgcgccgccgcgcgcgtgtcgtcggcat ggcgagcgccggcgtcgagccgcgcgtgatgggtatcggcccggcgccggccacg cagaaactgttgcgccagctcggcatgacgatcgaccagttcgacgtgatcgagctga acgaagcgttcgcgtcgcagggtctcgcggtgctgcgcatgctcggtgtcgccgacg acgatccgcgcgtgaaccccaacggcggtgcgatcgcgctcggccatccgctcggc gcatcgggtgcgcggctcgtgaccacggcgcttcaccaactcgagcgtacgggcgg ccgctttgcgctctgtacgatgtgcatcggcgtcggccagggcatcgcgatcgcgatc gaacgcgtgtaa beta- Ascaris suum bkt 1242 ATGGCCACCT CAATTTCTCGAT gtgatggccacctcaagacttgtctgcagcaatttaacgaagcaatgctttacgatctcgt ketothiolase CAAGACTTGT GACCATTCCACC cacgtgctgctagccaatttaccgatgtggtattcgtgggtgccgcacgaacaccggtc CTGC ggatcgtttcgctcttcgctttccactgttccagccactgtcctcggagctgaggctattaa gggtgcacttaaacatgccaatctaaaaccctcacaagtgcaagaggtgttctttggctg tgtcgttccatccaactgtggacaagttcctgcccgtcaagcgacacttggagctggatg cgatccttcgacaatcgttacaactctcaataaattgtgcgcctcgggaatgaagtcgaatt gcttgtgccgcctcacttttgcaacttggtcttcaagaggttaccgttggtggcggtatgg agagcatgagcttagtgccgtactatcttgaacgtggtgaaactacttatggtggaatga agctcatcgacggtatcccaagagatggtccgactgatgcatatagtaatcaacttatgg gtgcatgcgctgataatgtggctaaacgattcaacatcacccgtgaggaacaggataaa ttcgctattgaaagctataaacgatctgctgctgcatgggagagtggagcatgcaaagct gaagtagttcctattgaagtgacaaagggcaagaaaacatacattgtcaacaaggatga ggaatacatcaagtcaacttcgagaagcttcccaaactgaaacccgccttcttgaaag acggaaccatcacggctggcaatgcttcaacactgaacgatggtgctgcggcagttgt gatgacgactgtcgaaggagcgaaaaaatacggtgtgaaaccattggcccgattgctc tcatatggtgatgcggcaacaaatccagtcgattttgctattgcaccatcaatggttatcc aaaggtacttaaattggctaatctcgagatcaaggatattgatttgtgggaaatcaacgag gctttcgccgttgttccccttcattcaatgaagacactcggtatcgatcactcgaaagtga acattcatggtggtggcgtatctcttggacatcctattggaatgtctggagctcgaattatc gttcatctgattcatgcgttgaaacctggccagaaaggctgcgctgcaatctgcaatggt ggcggtggcgctggtggaatggtcatcgagaaattgtaa

The genes were expressed in E. coli and the proteins purified using Ni-NTA spin columns and quantified. To assay enzyme activity in vitro, a 5× CoA:DTNB (Ellman's reagent or 5,5′-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid)) mixture was prepared. The mixture consisted of 10 mM succinyl-CoA, 5 mM acetyl-CoA, 30 mM DTNB in 100 mM Tris buffer, pH 7.4. Five μL of the CoA:DTNB mixture was added to 0.5 μM purified thiolase enzyme in 100 mM Tris buffer, pH 7.8 in a final volume of 50 μL. The reaction was incubated at 30° C. for 30 minutes, then quenched with 2.5 μL 10% formic acid and samples frozen at −20° C. until ready for analysis by LC/MS. Because many thiolases can condense two acetyl-CoA molecules into acetoaceytl-CoA, production of acetoacetyl-CoA was examined. FIG. 6 shows that 3 thiolases demonstrated thiolase activity which resulted in acetoacetyl-CoA formation. These were fadAx from Pseudomonas putida, thiA from Clostridium acetobutylicum and thiB also from Clostridium acetobutylicum. When enzyme assays were examined for condensation of succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA into β-ketoadipyl-CoA, several enzymes demonstrated the desired activity; paaJ from Escherichia coli (Nogales et al., Microbiol. 153:357-365 (2007)), phaD from Pseudomonas putida (Olivera et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95:6419-6424 (1998)), bkt from Burkholderia ambifaria AMMD, pcaF from Pseudomonas putida KT2440 (Harwood et al., J. Bacteriol. 176:6479-6488 (1994)), and pcaF from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. There was excellent specificity between the thiolases. Those that generated significant amounts of β-ketoadipyl-CoA did not produce significant amounts of acetoacetyl-CoA and likewise those that made acetoacetyl-CoA did not make detectable amounts of β-ketoadipyl-CoA.

Example II Preparation of Terepthalate from Acetylene and Muconate

This Example provides conditions for the thermal inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reaction for the preparation of PTA from acetylene and muconate.

A lab-scale Parr reactor is flushed with nitrogen gas, evacuated and charged with (1 equivalent) trans, trans-muconic acid and (10 equivalents) acetylene. The reactor is then heated to 200° C. and held at this temperature for 12 hours. An initial pressure of 500 p.s.i.g. is applied. The reactor is then vented, exposed to air and cooled. The contents of the reactor are distilled at room temperature and pressure to yield volatile and nonvolatile fractions. The contents of each fraction are evaluated qualitatively by gas chromatographic analysis (GC-MS).

For quantitative analysis, standards of the starting materials and the expected products, cyclohexa-2,5-diene-1,4-dicarboxylate and terepthalate, are prepared. A known amount of cyclohexane is mixed with a known amount of the volatile fraction and the mixture is subjected to gas chromatography. The cyclohexane and terepthalate components are condensed from the effluent of the chromatogram into a single trap, the contents of which are diluted with carbon tetrachloride or CDCl₃ and then examined by NMR spectroscopy. Comparison of the appropriate areas of the NMR spectrum permits calculation of yields.

Example III Preparation of a Muconate Producing Microbial Organism, in which the Muconate is Derived from Succinyl-CoA

This example describes the generation of a microbial organism that has been engineered to produce muconate from succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA via beta-ketoadipate, as shown in FIG. 2. This example also provides a method for engineering a strain that overproduces muconate.

Escherichia coli is used as a target organism to engineer a muconate-producing pathway as shown in FIG. 5. E. coli provides a good host for generating a non-naturally occurring microorganism capable of producing muconate. E. coli is amenable to genetic manipulation and is known to be capable of producing various products, like ethanol, acetic acid, formic acid, lactic acid, and succinic acid, effectively under anaerobic, microaerobic or aerobic conditions.

First, an E. coli strain is engineered to produce muconate from succinyl-CoA via the route outlined in FIG. 2. For the first stage of pathway construction, genes encoding enzymes to transform central metabolites succinyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA to 2-maleylacetate (FIG. 2, Step A) is assembled onto vectors. In particular, the genes pcaF (AAA85138), pcalf (AAN69545 and NP_746082) and clcE (O30847) genes encoding beta-ketothiolase, beta-ketoadipyl-CoA transferase and 2-maleylacetate reductase, respectively, are cloned into the pZE13 vector (Expressys, Ruelzheim, Germany), under the control of the PA1/lacO promoter. The genes bdh (AAA58352.1) and fumC (P05042.1), encoding 2-maleylacetate dehydrogenase and 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase, respectively, are cloned into the pZA33 vector (Expressys, Ruelzheim, Germany) under the PA1/lacO promoter. The two sets of plasmids are transformed into E. coli strain MG1655 to express the proteins and enzymes required for muconate synthesis from succinyl-CoA.

The resulting genetically engineered organism is cultured in glucose containing medium following procedures well known in the art (see, for example, Sambrook et al., supra, 2001). The expression of muconate pathway genes is corroborated using methods well known in the art for determining polypeptide expression or enzymatic activity, including for example, Northern blots, PCR amplification of mRNA and immunoblotting. Enzymatic activities of the expressed enzymes are confirmed using assays specific for the individually activities. The ability of the engineered E. coli strain to produce muconate through this pathway is confirmed using HPLC, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LCMS).

Microbial strains engineered to have a functional muconate synthesis pathway from succinyl-CoA are further augmented by optimization for efficient utilization of the pathway. Briefly, the engineered strain is assessed to determine whether any of the exogenous genes are expressed at a rate limiting level. Expression is increased for any enzymes expressed at low levels that can limit the flux through the pathway by, for example, introduction of additional gene copy numbers.

After successful demonstration of enhanced muconate production via the activities of the exogenous enzymes, the genes encoding these enzymes are inserted into the chromosome of a wild type E. coli host using methods known in the art. Such methods include, for example, sequential single crossover (Gay et al., J. Bacteriol. 153:1424-1431 (1983)) and Red/ET methods from GeneBridges (Zhang et al., Improved RecT or RecET cloning and subcloning method (WO/2003/010322)). Chromosomal insertion provides several advantages over a plasmid-based system, including greater stability and the ability to co-localize expression of pathway genes.

To generate better producers, metabolic modeling is utilized to optimize growth conditions. Modeling is also used to design gene knockouts that additionally optimize utilization of the pathway (see, for example, U.S. patent publications US 2002/0012939, US 2003/0224363, US 2004/0029149, US 2004/0072723, US 2003/0059792, US 2002/0168654 and US 2004/0009466, and in U.S. Pat. No. 7,127,379). Modeling analysis allows reliable predictions of the effects on cell growth of shifting the metabolism towards more efficient production of muconate. One modeling method is the bilevel optimization approach, OptKnock (Burgard et al., Biotechnol. Bioengineer. 84:647-657 (2003)), which is applied to select gene knockouts that collectively result in better production of muconate. Adaptive evolution also can be used to generate better producers of, for example, the 4-acetylbutyrate intermediate or the muconate product. Adaptive evolution is performed to improve both growth and production characteristics (Fong and Palsson, Nat. Genet. 36:1056-1058 (2004); Alper et al., Science 314:1565-1568 (2006)). Based on the results, subsequent rounds of modeling, genetic engineering and adaptive evolution can be applied to the muconate producer to further increase production.

For large-scale production of muconate, the above muconate pathway-containing organism is cultured in a fermenter using a medium known in the art to support growth of the organism under anaerobic conditions. Fermentations are performed in either a batch, fed-batch or continuous manner. Anaerobic conditions are maintained by first sparging the medium with nitrogen and then sealing culture vessel (e.g., flasks can be sealed with a septum and crimp-cap). Microaerobic conditions also can be utilized by providing a small hole for limited aeration. The pH of the medium is maintained at a pH of 7 by addition of an acid, such as H₂SO₄. The growth rate is determined by measuring optical density using a spectrophotometer (600 nm), and the glucose uptake rate by monitoring carbon source depletion over time. Byproducts such as undesirable alcohols, organic acids, and residual glucose can be quantified by HPLC (Shimadzu) with an HPX-087 column (BioRad), using a refractive index detector for glucose and alcohols, and a UV detector for organic acids, Lin et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng., 775-779 (2005).

Throughout this application various publications have been referenced. The disclosures of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference in this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains. Although the invention has been described with reference to the examples provided above, it should be understood that various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A non-naturally occurring Escherichia coli, comprising the Escherichia coli organism having a muconate pathway comprising at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate, said muconate pathway comprising an enzyme selected from the group consisting of a 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, a 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, a 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, a 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase, a 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group) and a 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase wherein said Escherichia coli comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme obtained from bacteria, yeast, fungi, plant or mammal, and wherein the at least one exogenous nucleic acid is overexpressed resulting in increased synthesis or accumulation of a muconate.
 2. The non-naturally occurring E. coli of claim 1, wherein said muconate pathway comprises a set of muconate pathway enzymes, said set of muconate pathway enzymes selected from the group consisting of: A) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, (3) 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase; B) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), (4) 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase; and C) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group), (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.
 3. The non-naturally occurring E. coli of claim 1, wherein said E. coli comprises two exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme.
 4. The non-naturally occurring E. coli of claim 1, wherein said E. coli comprises three exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme.
 5. The non-naturally occurring E. coli of claim 1, wherein said E. coli comprises four exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme.
 6. The non-naturally occurring E. coli of claim 1, wherein said E. coli comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid is a heterologous nucleic acid.
 7. The non-naturally occurring E. coli of claim 1, wherein said E. coli is in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.
 8. A method for producing muconate, comprising culturing a non-naturally occurring Escherichia coli having a muconate pathway, said pathway comprising at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme [or protein if non-enzyme] expressed in a sufficient amount to produce muconate, under conditions and for a sufficient period of time to produce muconate, said muconate pathway comprising a 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, a 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, a 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, a 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase, a 4-hydroxy-2 oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), a 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group) and a 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase wherein said Escherichia coli comprises at least one exogenous nucleic acid encoding a muconate pathway enzyme obtained from bacteria, yeast, fungi, plant or mammal, and wherein the at least one exogenous nucleic acid is overexpressed resulting in increased synthesis or accumulation of a muconate.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the Escherichia coli muconate pathway comprises a set of muconate pathway enzymes, said set of muconate pathway enzymes selected from the group consisting of: A) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 2-oxopentenoate hydratase, (3) 4-oxalocrotonate dehydrogenase, (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase; B) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 2-hydroxy), (4) 3-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase; and C) (1) 4-hydroxy-2-ketovalerate aldolase, (2) 4-hydroxy-2-oxohexanedioate oxidoreductase, (3) 2,4-dihydroxyadipate dehydratase (acting on 4-hydroxyl group), (4) 2-hydroxy-4-hexenedioate dehydratase.
 10. The method of claim 8, wherein said non-naturally occurring E. coli is in a substantially anaerobic culture medium.
 11. The method of claim 8, wherein said non-naturally occurring E. coli comprises two exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme.
 12. The method of claim 8, wherein said non-naturally occurring E. coli comprises three exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme.
 13. The method of claim 8, wherein said non-naturally occurring E. coli comprises four exogenous nucleic acids each encoding a muconate pathway enzyme.
 14. The method of claim 8, wherein said at least one exogenous nucleic acid is a heterologous nucleic acid. 